


Cinders

by daughteroflilith



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, Fairy Tale Retellings, Lesbian Fairy Tale Retelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-10-25 04:03:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 33,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17717678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daughteroflilith/pseuds/daughteroflilith
Summary: You of course know the story, the ashes, the girl, the ball, the prince, the frantic flight at midnight, and the forgotten glass slipper. It is an old story and it has been told and retold a thousand different ways My story is not much different, even if my prince was a duke’s youngest daughter and my slippers were made of silk not glass. I never slept in a fire’s ashes, although I was covered in them the first time my love ever laid eyes on me.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Note: This story originally appeared in my other account Wanderingstoryteller. I've migrated it to my second account Daughteroflilith so that all my original writing will be in one place.

You of course know  _ the story _ , the ashes, the girl, the ball, the prince, the frantic flight at midnight, and the forgotten glass slipper. It is an old story and it has been told and retold a thousand different ways  _ My story _ is not much different, even if my prince was a duke’s youngest daughter and my slippers were made of silk not glass. I never slept in a fire’s ashes, although I was covered in them the first time my love ever laid eyes on me.

I was kneeling in front of hearth, scraping out the ashes, when my kitchen door burst open one rainy day. I snatched up the fire poker and leapt to my feet. For half an instant I feared that an unknown huntsman had come into my home while I was alone and defenseless, or as defenseless as any woman with a solid iron bar in her hand can be.

I saw quickly by the lamps flickering light that I was mistaken. She was a woman even if she was dressed in doeskin trousers and a heavy wool hunter’s cloak.  She was a head taller than me and slender in the way of youth. Her eyes were clear blue and her curly dark hair was caught back in a rumpled braid.

She was as striking woman as I had ever seen and I half thought the fates had answered my longing for a lover. Then she opened her mouth.

“Girl, I am Aurelia,  the duke’s daughter and in need of shelter from the storm. Please, fetch me food and ale.” She certainly spoke like a noble but unfortunately the impetuous sort.

I set down the poker and crossed my arms, “I’m a lady of this house, not a girl to be ordered about. I do, however, bid you welcome and offer you what hospitality I can. We have no ale here but I can offer you hot tea. As for food there’s porridge and day old bread if that will suit you.” 

Nothing can make a woman cling her pride as fiercely as poverty. I might have known the cold bite of hunger but I wasn’t going to let this strange noblewoman, who’d come out of the storm, make me feel like a peasant.

She seemed confused and sat at the kitchen table, when I motioned towards it.

“You’re a lady of this house?”

I laid a hand on my hip, “I am. This homestead was my father’s before he died and he was a lord, so I must be a lady.”

She lowered her eyes in embarrassment, “Forgive me, I didn't mean to insult you. What is your name then, lady…?”

“Lady Ashley,” I told her.

I built a fire and waited for the kettle to boil. Then I set warm tea before her. I re-heated the pot of porridge I’d meant for my own supper. I had nothing else to give her. I offered it in a hard wooden bowl; we’d sold my mother’s china long ago.

The noble woman ate half of what I offered her with the carelessness of one who’d never known hunger. 

I took a heavy ceramic cup of tea for myself and sat across from my guest. “Were you on foot?”

“No, horseback, I became lost during a hunt.”

“Where is your horse then? You didn’t leave it out in the yard did you?”

She frowned, “I tied him to the fencepost. I’d have put him in the barn but no servant came.”

“You left an animal out in this weather? It’s sleeting.” I jumped to my feet, throwing my shawl about my shoulders and slipping my feet into the heavy wooden clogs beside the door.

I heard her call after me but I was already stepping out into the icy mud of the yard. I found the horse, where she’d left him tied. He was shying against his reins and shivering in the bitter rain. I calmed the animal with soft words and a hand on his muzzle and then lead him towards the barn. The door was almost too heavy to push open on my own and I felt a strong shoulder helping me. To my surprise my guest had come out into the storm and was pulling the wooden door with me.

We pushed it open and stepped into the warmth of the barn.

“Jacques,” I called up to the loft, “there’s a horse here needing your care.”

The boy climbed down the ladder yawning sleepily. His hazy green eyes went wide with fear when he saw the stranger and he shied backwards

“It’s all right Jacques, she’s a friend. Her horse has been in the rain, the poor animal needs to be rubbed down and fed. You will help him won’t you?”

Jacques edged foreword with his eyes downwards.  He was two heads taller than me and more than a few years past my age, yet still seemed a frightened child. I suppose he always would. They say the gods watch over fools and children, I’m not really sure which he should have been considered, though he was as kind a soul as I’d ever known. 

He took the horse’s reins from my hand and led it towards one of the empty stalls, already mumblings softly to the animal. 

We ran back across the yard in the lessening drizzle. I was shivering by the time I knelt beside the kitchen fire to rekindle it. My woolen shawl hadn’t done much to keep out the rain.

I laid my shawl on a hook by the fire and stood there with my hands as close to the flame as I dared. She stood beside me and I noticed out of the corner of my eye that she’d taken off her cloak and vest.

She wore a fine white linen shirt that clung to her slender shoulders and the soft curve of her breasts. She must have noticed me looking, because she smiled at my slyly, her lips curling ever so slightly.

“You’re trembling my lady, you should not have gone out into the storm.”

“I’d not have had to, had you the good sense to stable your own horse.”

She bowed, a motion that seemed ridiculous beside the hearth, “I beg your forgiveness then.” 

I felt a smile turning up my mouth. I glanced at her shyly from beneath my lashes. I had the feeling we were playing a game, as much as any two lovers on May Day ever did. “I grant it to you then.” 

She was too charming for me to be angry with her. Her hand was warm when she touched the side of my face. She tilted up my chin and brought her lips to meet mine. She wasn’t my first kiss, though in truth she was certainly my best. She had none of the shyness of the milkmaid who’d stolen my first kiss behind the stable or the clumsy ardor of the seamstress’s daughter who’d gone considerably farther last Midsummer’s Eve.

Things had just started to go the way you might imagine they would, when the kitchen door banged open. I had not heard the horse cart returning. My younger stepsister, Talia, burst into the warmth of the kitchen, “Oh Ash, you won’t be believe it. We got two silver coins for the goat! We’ve bought three bags of good flour.” She froze and squeaked at the sight of Aurelia with her arms around me. Lilia, my older stepsister, half tripped over Lilia as she came in.

By the time they’d untangled themselves, so had Aurelia and I, which was a blessing since my stepmother was next through the door. Her lean shoulders were slumped with exhaustion and her face was pale from the cold.

Her lips thinned the moment she saw Aurelia and me. We might have pulled apart but I was still scrambling to lace the front of my dress. That gave me away, as much as the flush that came to my face.

My stepmother straightened her back, “Who are you and what business, have you beneath my roof?” 

Aurelia bowed to her as deeply as she would have done for a noble of almost equal rank, “I am Aurelia Lanchard, youngest daughter of the Duke of Giard. Forgive me for my intrusion, I became lost during a hunt and sought shelter here when the storm began.

“I can see you sought more than shelter,” she offered no bow or curtsy of her own. “I fear we have no more hospitality to offer you. Come, I will show you back to the road.”

Aurelia cast me an apologetic glance but accepted her cloak and vest when I gave them to her and followed my stepmother out into the yard. Even a Duke’s daughter will not argue with the lady of a house beneath her own roof.

I grabbed my shawl and followed her out. I watched her cross to the barn, Lilia and Talia stood at my back, both gawking. I could forgive Talia for her lack of tack on account of her youth, but really Lilia was far too old to be such a snoop.

My stepmother waited with her arms crossed as Aurelia led her horse out of the barn and they walked together through the yard gate out towards the road.

I turned back into the warmth of the kitchen, once they were out of sight.

“You’ve got a lover and she’s a noble woman too!” exclaimed Talia.

“I have not,” I snapped.

Lilia, who had already seated herself as close to the fire as she could, get rolled her eyes, “I’m pretty sure your dress didn’t unlace itself.”

I crossed my arms in front of myself, “Don’t talk like that in front of Talia.”

“Why not? You’re not going to say anything I haven’t heard before,” declared Talia taking a seat at the table.

“As long as it’s only heard and not done,” said Lilia turning back towards the fire.

It wasn’t half a minute later that my stepmother came back in, coughing and hanging up her shawl by the fire.

“Talia, Lilia go put on some dry clothes, I need to talk to Ash.”

They both protested but they went. My stepmother wearily sunk into one of the hard wooden chairs. I busied myself about the kitchen for as long as I could. I heated a new pot of porridge and made the willow bark tea that I knew would help with her pains.

She accepted the tea and we sat together at the hard wooden table in silence.

“Was she really who she said she was?” she asked at last.

“I think so. She came out of the storm but a few hours past.”

She got quiet again, her graying head bent over the warmth of her mug. She’d seemed such an elegant and beautiful woman the first time I’d seen her, stepping down from my father’s coach, vibrant with health and life and with two little girls in tow. These last few years had worn her thin and tired as a bone in a rag. I knew I’d disappointed her again and I’d have rather taken an arrow to the heart than do that.

I struggled for words, “She and I…we didn’t and it’s not like she could have gotten me with child anyway.”

She just sighed, “It matters very little what you did Ash. What matters is what she says you did. Your reputation is all you have and you may have just tarnished it.”

“What does my reputation matter, innocent or worn, I’m equally impoverished.”

She just looked at me, like I was a five year old and speaking nonsense. “Reputation is everything. Gods know that as women of modest birth, we have little else in this world.” She took a breath and I heard that it was not a deep one. “Do you know why I took the goat to town?”

“Because we needed flour?”

“And because I wanted to speak to the Mrs. Harper about her daughter. She said that she’d let Jenny marry you without any dowry but yourself and maybe a couple of our nanny goats. She’ll even take you on as an apprentice.”

I half choked on my tea “What? You engaged me to Jenny?”

“Yes. I thought you’d be happy, you’ve been stepping out with her since midsummer.”

“I…” I didn’t know what to think. The making of engagements was the business of parents, and Eleanor was as close to a mother as I had. She was not overstepping her rights as a stepmother to be making an acceptable match for me. Marrying a seamstress’s daughter a few years before would have seemed unthinkable, but now, well things had changed.

I liked Jenny, I’d half thought I might love her but nothing I’d ever done with her had felt half as passionate or overwhelming as the last few hours with Aurelia. I couldn’t even begin to understand what that meant.

“I have to talk to Jenny.”

“I’ll send you to town in a few days to buy some sugar. You can seek her out then.” She sipped at her tea, still not really looking at me. “You need to understand though, that this is the best match I can ever make for you. Mrs. Harper would have never made this offer if she weren’t dying from that cough of hers. She wants to see her oldest daughter married before she goes.  She knows you’re a smart capable girl, who will keep the shop running and help Jenny take care of all her little sisters.”

I looked down at my hands. Eleanor was right and I should have been happy but I wasn’t. I felt something hurting inside of me, as I watched my life shrink into the confines of a seamstress shop and the day-to-day struggle of keeping a business going and feeding six little girls. I liked Jenny but I knew her life was going to be a hard one, I didn’t know if I liked her enough to share it.

I was surprised when Eleanor laid a hand on my shoulder. She’d never been the sort to hug, not even her own daughters. “I’m not trying to get rid of you Ash, I just want you safe and fed, same as I want for your sisters. I don’t know how long we can keep this house against the creditors.”

“I know.”

We sat for a long time in silence.

She finally raised her eyes, looking at me like she could see though my skin to my soul. I don’t know if all mother's can see through their daughters like that, I barely remembered my own. Eleanor hadn’t birthed me but she’d tended me since I was seven and we’d weathered all the years together since. 

The fire crackled as it settled and grew low, “Tell me the truth Ash, was that girl in the pretty clothes just lost or has she been here before? Even if she’s your lover, you know a noble like that will never marry you, no matter what she promises.”

“No, she was just lost. I kissed her that was all, nothing more.”

“Alright, let this be an end to it.”

And it should have been.

My stepsisters teased me, begged to learn what had happened but I refused to talk. I think I could have forgotten Aurelia if I’d never seen her again but my fate was not going to be that easy.


	2. Chapter 2

The next day I pulled on my oldest dress and my father’s faded cloak and went out into the woods to check my snares. Jacques father, the old stable keeper, had taught me how to follow tracks and set snares before he’d died of a fever three winters past. Poaching was illegal but we could ill afford to buy meat or slaughter any of our goats or laying hens. I wouldn’t have risked it but my stepmother's cough had been getting worse lately and she looked so thin. She needed more to sustain her than just oat porridge. 

I took a basket with me, under the pretense of gathering herbs. Truth be told, I had little to fear. The duke’s huntsmen might cut any snares they found but they weren’t in the business of tracking down poachers, not when rabbits, grouse, and deer were so plentiful.

I walked through the woods in the chill morning air, frost crunching beneath my well-worn boots. The sleet from the day before had never fully melted. Winter was tightening her grasp on the world. I found my first two snares empty and two fat half white, half brown, hares caught in the next two.

I cleaned them both and laid them beneath a thin layer of late fall leaves. If by some bizarre chance one of the duke’s men found me, he wouldn’t have the sense to know that plain old oak leaves were of no use to me. Most me, at least men at arms, know nothing of forest plants. I had just turned towards home when the sound of a horse startled me.

I snatched at the dagger that I had hidden beneath my cloak. Any village girl would have been carrying the same. There’d been too much trouble with bandits over the last few year to go unarmed. 

The horse that came into the clearing was familiar, as was the woman who led it. I hid the dagger before she could notice it.

“Don’t tell me you’re lost again Lady Aurelia.”

She smiled, already setting about tying her horse to a low branch.

“Would you believe me if I said I was.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                “No.”

“Then I suppose I might admit that I came looking for you. Your little sister told me you were out gathering herbs, although what you think you'll find after a frost, I cannot begin to imagine.” 

I was impressed that she’d found me, I hadn’t been following any path and she must have tracked me by the footprints I’d left in the frost. 

"And what are your intentions my good lady?”

She stepped towards me and probably would have taken me into her arms if I had not stepped back.  She was not perturbed. “My intentions are to carry on where we left off.”

“Well, that’s hardly proper, especially in such cold air.”

“We could lie on my cloak.”

I stood my ground, “I am no tavern wench.”

She moved very close to me, “No, though you are a poacher, unless those are some very unseasonable rabbit’s ears I see beneath the leaves in your basket.”

I flushed and had to fight down the urge to snatch at my dagger. The punishment for poaching was a public whipping.

“Please, I needed the meat for my stepmother. She’s not well. You can’t…”

She must have seen the fear in my eyes because she took a step back. “I wouldn’t, I mean, I won’t. I was just teasing you,” she finished quickly in one breath.

Her face was so earnest that I relaxed. “Thank you,” I half whispered.

The moment we’d been having had been lost. She looked down at her well-polished boots, “I’m sorry. The last thing I wanted was to frighten you.” She seemed more a normal woman then, embarrassed and awkward with her shoulders hunched.

“It’s all right.” I sat down on a nearby log and motioned her next to me. She tied the horse’s reins to a nearby tree and sat beside me.

“So tell me, how did a fine lady such as yourself learn to hunt coneys ?” She watched me out of the corner of her eyes as she spoke.

I winced at her boldness but found myself smiling coyly. “I learned woodcraft and snares from the stable boy’s father.  That is what you mean isn’t it?”

She laughed, “Of course, what else could I mean?” She leaned closer and I could feel the warmth of her. I could see how much she wanted me by the dilation of her eyes.

“I can only imagine. Although if you want to know who I first tumbled, it was the seamstress’s daughter.” I brought my mouth up to kiss her. Her lips were as soft and warm as I remembered. She must have rubbed bee’s wax or something else on them, for them not to be chapped and dry in such cold weather.

I wasn’t sure what I was doing. I’d never acted like this before, so fearless and wanton. I wanted her so desperately though. I might be married by fall and then I’d never get to touch another woman but sweet and far too gentle Jenny.

Aurelia wasted no time in pulling me against her, her hands wandering everywhere, scrambling with the laces in the front of my worn woolen dress.

The laces on her own linen shirt beneath her cloak were far too complicated for me to even attempt so I slipped my hands beneath the whole thing. 

She gasped against my mouth, as my cold fingers found her warm stomach and then moved up to even more desirable parts of her.

Her breasts were small and round, much like my own. I caught a nipple between my fingers and enjoyed the way her breath shortened. She buried her face against my neck and then started to kiss it. 

I think she tired of me holding the advantage because she gave up with the knots on the front of my dress and half yanked me onto her lap. I was straddling her where she sat on the log. She deepened our kiss. I gasped with cold, when she yanked my skirts half up my hips, exposing my legs to the bitter air.

I didn’t protest, her hands, chilled as they were, felt incredible. I used my free hand to clutch at her shoulder for balance, as both her hands moved beneath my dress, one stroking my leg and the other going much higher, finding a breast and giving me as good as I’d done to her.

She brought her lips to mine again so that she could stifle my surprise, as she pressed her fingers against the warmth between my thighs. She knew exactly what she was doing, finding instantly the place I so dearly wanted to be touched.

I pressed against her achingly. She ended our kiss so that she might see my face and skirted her fingers lower. She looked into my eyes as if asking permission.

“Please,” I begged.

She slipped her fingers into my warmth. I moaned and clung to her. I could feel her fingers inside of me, sure and strong curling in just the right way as her thumb stroked my center of pleasure.

It was too much, too good. I burned as I moved against her, utterly forgetting the bitterly cold fall air. I wanted it to go on forever but the pleasure overwhelmed me and I cried out as my whole body tensed with a wonderful flash of warmth and release.

I slumped against her, fighting to breathe as she pulled me close. I kissed at whatever part of her I could reach, the underside of her ear, the edge of her lips. She stroked my hair, absently tugging out my braid. 

I wanted, no I needed to touch her everywhere, and I planned to as soon as my heart no longer felt like a trapped bird inside my chest.

Then I felt Aurelia tense beneath me.  I didn’t know why, until I heard the crunch of more than one pair of boots on the frozen leaves. Aurelia moved so quickly she tumbled me from her lap, shoving me behind herself and drawing a long dagger from a sheath on her belt.

I scrambled to regain my feet, drawing my own dagger from my boot as I stood. Our small clearing was surrounded by six figures all of which were wearing filthy patched cloaks. I knew bandits when I saw them. Perhaps half were men and half were women, it was hard to tell beneath all the grime.

To my surprise, one, who was clearly a woman, stepped out in front of all of them. She was a lean as a wolf at midwinter and her once dark hair was streaked with grey and pulled back in a messy tail. One grey eye was as sharp as a hawks and a black patch covered the other.  She could have been anywhere between thirty and fifty winters, so worn was her attractive face. She had a loaded crossbow in her hands, an expensive piece of equipment that didn’t match her patched jerkin and threadbare pants.

“Put down the knives girls or we’ll have to take them from you.” Her voice was sharp as flint.

“I’m not stupid,” snarled Aurelia. 

The woman tilted her head to the side and rested a hand on her narrow hip, “You’ll be dead if you fight six armed men and women with nothing but a dagger little noble.”

“I won’t let you hurt her!” she spat, grabbing my arm with her free hand and pulling us even closer. I wished she wouldn’t, she’d thrown me off my balance and almost caused me to drop my own dagger. I was right handed and that was the arm she was clutching with her left hand. If I hadn’t been defenseless before she was unintentionally doing her level best to make me so.

The bandit shrugged a cold smile on her thin lips, “Why would I want to? She clearly has no possessions of value and she surrenders her virtue freely. I doubt you guard your own charms any better but I fear they are not something that I can resell.” 

She spoke far to formally for any kind of bandit I’d ever heard of, almost as if she’d once been a noble herself.

“What do you want?” hissed Aurelia.

“Your horse and your purse. I’m no fool. I know that if I hurt you, your noble father will hunt me to the ends of the earth. I doubt he will do the same for a stolen stallion and a few silvers. I’ll take your fine clothes as well.”

“What?” 

“Your cloak and boots and leather trousers are worth a small fortune and I intend to take them. I’ll wrestle them from your stunned body, if I have too but I think it will be easier if you just give them to me.

“No,” she snapped.

They all took a menacing step towards us.

I nudged her hard, “Just give them what they want. I’ll lend you my cloak.”

“Fine.”

She passed me her dagger, which I quickly slipped into my belt. She started with her belt and then her boots, tugging them off angrily and flinging them down. She paused longer with her trousers but scrambled out of those and then stood there in her stockings and long linen shirt, murder on her face. I quickly draped my cloak around her and subtly slipped her back her dagger in the same motion.

“The shirt too,” said one of the younger men and when everyone glanced at him he shrugged and added, “the linen’s valuable.”

The head bandit laughed, “Don’t get greedy Jack. We’d best leave her that for modesty's sake or people might believe something untoward has happened. Gather up the things and we’ll be away.”

The young man darted foreword snatching up Aurelia’s possession from the ground and an older woman approached the horse. The stallion edged away from her but she said something very softly and the animal calmed, letting himself be led by the halter.

“Good evening ladies,” said the head bandit with a nod. As quickly as the bandits had appeared, they slipped back into the forest.

It took us a long time to walk back. I used two pieces of cloth to wrap Aurelia’s feet so that she wouldn’t destroy them on the frozen ground but she was still soon limping. I was shivering myself in my worn dress without my cloak.

She was not as frightened nor as angry as I thought a noblewoman might be. Instead, once the shock had worn off, she laughed, “Well the jokes on them. They might be able to sell the clothes once they rip out my families crest but they’ll see no profit from that horse.”

“Why not? Isn’t he purebred?”

She shook her head, “He is indeed and also as ill humored a bastard as any horse ever born. My father made the mistake of letting me raise him from a colt when I was a child and I must have done a poor job of it. Conrad will tolerate no rider but me nor go more than a day’s ride from his home stable. He’ll let a groom lead him into a stall but he broke a stable boy’s leg throwing him off his back once. Every time I’ve tried to ride him from my father’s lands he has turned with me still on his back and headed for home. I’m sure he’ll throw a bandit soon and be home in a day or so.”

I was tired and cold so I didn’t laugh, “I’m not sure your lack of talent with horses is anything to brag about.”

He blushed and looked away, “Nor my failure to protect you I suppose.”

“I was armed the same as you.”

“Do all women of your town carry daggers in the forest?”

“Since the bandits began waylaying travelers on the road. They’ve never actually attacked anyone in the forest as brazenly as they just did though.”

She straightened up in spite of the cold, “My father will catch them.”

“Your father’s been trying to catch them since midsummer and all he’s done is hang a poor halfwit who was caught stealing hens.”

She turned to look back at me but I never heard what she’d have said next because a man’s voice rang loud and clear through the forest.

“Lady Aurelia! Lady Aurelia!”

“Here Robert,” she called back.

A moment later a large grey horse with a man in a blue cloak burst through the trees. The young man leapt down from the animals back gracefully and ran to Aurelia.

“My lady I’ve been searching for you for hours.” He froze in his step when he got a better look at her, “Where is your horse and your…shoes?”

“My companion and I had the unfortunate luck to run into some bandits and they liberated me of those items.”

Fear washed over the man’s handsome face. I noticed how similar it was to Aurelia’s, even his hair was almost the same dark shade. He was clearly dressed as a member of the Duke’s guard from this deep blue cloak to the crest on his tunic. “Did they…?”

“No, Rob, they just took my things. They weren’t fools. Can we please just go home. If I am gone any longer, Father will begin to wonder and I’d rather not explain to him what I was doing alone in the forest.”

He bowed deeply and then motioned to the horse, “Very well my lady. You’d best ride before you destroy your feet.”

Aurelia glanced back at me, “We’ve got to escort Lady Ashley safely to her hearth first.”

“Best not. I’d rather my stepmother not know why I am late returning. We’re less than a quarter mile from my home.”

She bit at her lip nervously, “but its proper to escort a lady.”

I found a strange smile crossing my lips, “It’s hardly been a proper day and if I entered the forest alone, I ought to return that way. Give me back my cloak and I’ll be away.”

Something almost like hurt entered her eyes as she unclasped my father’s old cloak and draped it around my shoulders. 

“When can I see you again?” she whispered.

“I don’t know. You must not come to my home again. I love my sisters but they’ve no talent for keeping secrets.”

She clasped my hand and kissed me once lightly “As you will then. I’ll find a way. I promise.”

“My lady, we’d best go,” said Robert glancing towards the falling sun.

“Aye you're right.”

Robert climbed onto the horse and then offered Aurelia a hand to help her mount behind him. He offered me a quick nod, “Safe travels Lady Ashley,” and then spurred the horse and they were gone.


	3. Chapter 3

I woke the next morning in the bed I shared with my sisters. I’d had my own once when I was a little girl but we’d sold most of the feather mattresses when the debts worsened and it wasn’t as if we could afford to heat the bedrooms. With no wood for the upper fireplaces it was warmer to share a bed.

I left them both sleeping in the predawn darkness and slipped downstairs to kindle the hearth.  I wanted the kitchen warm before the others awoke. I knew how the chill made my stepmother’s cough worse. Lilia caught cold so easily, her fragile health often giving way to fevers. I suppose I could have made Talia help, but she was worse than a bear woken in the heart of winter in the mornings.

I had a kettle bubbling on the fire and tea brewing before my stepmother appeared wrapped in her shawl. She sat down and I gave her a cup of tea. 

“We need oats and hay for winter and I know Farmer White will be selling off his excess now. I want you to go to town and buy enough to keep the stock until spring.”

We grew a small crop of oats and hay ourselves but it was back breaking work and impossible to grow enough with only Talia, Jacques and me to do the work. Oats and hay were not cheap to buy but the animals had to eat during the winter and if we lost them we would be truly destitute.

“I thought we didn’t have enough coin for that.”

“We’ve a little,” she passed me a small bag of coins. “Take Farmer White two of the nanny goats that have gone dry and that should be enough.”

“I will.”

“And while you are in town, go and talk to Jenny.”

“I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

“Then you had best make it now. I can feed you through the winter or I can feed the stock. If you won’t marry Jenny, you’ve got to tell me now because we have to sell half the animals or watch them starve.”

I felt as if I’d been slapped, “Is it truly that desperate?”

“Yes. I wish I could give you more choices but I can’t. I don’t know what else to do.”

I knew she was right. I had gone over the accounts with her so many times. I knew exactly how desperate we were, I’d just been deluding myself.

“I’ll go talk to Jenny then.”

Relief filled her dark eyes. She reached across the table and patted my hand, “Good.”

…

I took the draft horse and cart into town. It was slow going, but faster than walking and the horse needed the exercise. It wasn’t good for him to be idle in the pasture or stable all fall once the harvest was done.

I knew how to ride and as a girl I’d once had a pony. The draft horse wasn’t broken to saddle though, so to the cart was the only way to go. In town I bought a few things with cooper from the sale of the goat and then went looking for Jenny. I could stop at Farmer White’s farm on the way back.

I found Jenny in her mother’s shop, busy stitching something in her lap. She sat amongst bolts of colorful cloth in the well-lit room. Her dress was a faded blue with embroidery on the hems and sleeves, just nice enough to serve customers in the shop. Her golden hair was carefully pulled back into a neat braid, framing her lean, almost fox like face. 

When she looked up at me she smiled with delicate lips and warm green eyes. 

Her mother, Eli, was in the shop as well. She was sorting buttons at a desk, her youngest daughter, barely two years old balanced on her lap. Eli’s hair had become streaked with grey since her husband’s death and her own illness. She was almost painfully thin and there were dark marks of exhaustion beneath her eyes. Even as I stood in the doorway a fit of coughing took her. She looked up once it was past.

“Ashley please come in. I’m sure you’ve come to talk to Jenny. There’s tea back in the kitchen.”

In the little kitchen Jenny made tea and we sat and talked. In my heart of hearts I wanted Jenny to fall to her knees and beg for my hand, to declare love, to swear she’d perish without me like a heroine in a ballad. Instead she blushed and looked at her hands. She was worse with words than I was.

We hadn’t always been so silent with each other. We’d been friends as children and thick as thieves. I missed the laughter and the ease of words that had once been between us. May Day had changed something though; both in the way we grew hesitant around each other and in the way others saw us. We weren’t just two girls running lose and laughing anymore, we were two women courting with the weight of expectations upon us.

In the end I had to do the talking, “My stepmother says your mother has asked for my hand for you, but do you really want to marry me Jenny?”

She flushed so dark I could barely see her freckles and looked at me shyly, “Yes, I do. I love you.”

Maybe it is good that parents handle the formal part of engagements, I doubt Jenny and I could have sorted it on our own.

I caught her hands and kissed them.

“I’ll marry you then.” 

She kissed my lips and for a moment it felt like that night in the heat of May. I thought I’d be happy to build a life with her.

Life has a way of seeping into happiness though. We couldn’t kiss long, not in the kitchen, not with her little sisters about somewhere in the house. It wasn’t long before her mother got impatient and came in. She saw our joined hands and knew things had gone as they should.

She called in all six of her other daughters. We all sat by the fire and drank sweet cider and ate the candied nuts she took down from over the fireplace. I was happy then, as happy as I’d been a long time.

Ever practical, Jenny’s mother said that Jenny and I should marry at the fall festival, when many other young couples would as well. The traveling priestess should be there and everything would be proper and official.

Jenny walked me out. We held hands like we were newly courting, her eyes shone and her smile was as bright as anything I’d ever seen. I hadn’t thought I could make a woman smile like that.  We stole as many kisses as we could in the barn, but we both knew that if we tarried too long her family might realize why, so we forced ourselves to pull apart. I hitched the horse to the cart and headed homewards.

On the way I stopped to trade the goats and coin for the oats and hay. I knew as I helped Farmer White’s sons load the cart that there was no going back on my decision. I would marry Jenny in three weeks time. The coin that would have fed me through the winter was now spent. I would simply have to put the charming Duke’s daughters out of my mind. It wasn’t as if Aurelia would ever marry me anyway.

**...**

I got home just before dusk and Jacques and Talia helped me unload the hay and oats into the barn. My Stepmother watched from the kitchen steps shivering in her shawl. 

“It’s done then?”

“It’s done. I’m engaged. We’ll wed at the harvest festival.”

“Jenny’s a good girl and so are you. You’ll take care of each other.”

“I know,” I just wished I didn’t feel so empty. It reminded me of one midwinter mornings when I was a tiny girl.  I had dumped all the presents out of my stocking and found that the penny whistle I had wanted so much was not among the fruits and candies. I had something, just not what I dreamed of.

“Come upstairs, there’s something I want to show you.” 

She took a lantern and led me all the way up the stairs to the attic. We kept it closed to keep in the heat. The air was filled with dust. When we opened the door and she began to cough. I cursed myself for not coming up and cleaning. 

After a moment, the dust settled and she pushed in past broken furniture and a few trunks of useless things. The lantern cast long shadows as we walked across the creaking floor. She knelt down beside a small oak box and put a key from the ring of her belt into it. 

When she lifted the lid, the room filled with the scent of old lavender. With shaking hands she lifted up a beautiful dress of delicate blue silk. I hadn’t seen anything even half as fine in far too long.

“This was your mother’s.”

My throat felt choked and I reached for the dress with trembling hands, “I thought we sold all her dresses.”

“I kept one for you. Every girl ought to have something from her mother. You can wear it on your wedding day.”

I held the dress close to my face and for half a breath I breathed in the memory of warmth and security from a woman who barely remained even at the edges of my dreams.

In the end I brought the whole trunk down to the kitchen and tried on the dress in front of my stepsisters. I wished I had a big mirror, but we’d sold that. There was nothing but a small hand mirror to look in.

The dress itself was too loose in the bust and too long at the hem but those were all things that could be fixed. There was a bone comb to put up my hair and a glass necklace. Even in the tiny hand mirror, I knew I looked like a lady, a proper lady like my mother had been, like my stepmother was.

Lilia and Talia were awestruck. The white linen slippers we found in the trunk were clearly far too big and had faded to almost yellow.

“We’ll have the cobbler make you something simple. No one will be looking at your feet anyway,” my stepmother promised.

...

The next morning when I went out to the goat shed, I found one of the nearly grown kids missing and its mother bleating piteously. There were boot prints in the morning frost covered ground. The prints were big, probably a man’s.

I had heard the dogs barking in the night but I’d thought it was a fox after the chickens. I’d just repaired the coop and so assumed they were safe and I could go back to sleep. Looking at the prints, I was glad I hadn’t gone out into the dark, even with a fireplace poker in my hand.

I could probably track down the thief from the prints that led into the forest but I wasn’t fool enough to go alone after a man desperate enough to steal a goat from a shed. I had to do something though. If I took no action, the thief might come back, might even try to take another animal. We couldn’t afford that.

I went back to the house to get my best dress and shawl. I could at least go talk to my neighbors and see if they’d lost animals. If nothing else, I could warn everyone to take precautions and if the thief were a member of the community instead of a desperate outlaw, he’d know people were watching for him.

It took me the better of the part of the morning to visit all my neighbors in walking distance. Halfway through the effort, I was beginning to wonder if it was worth it. I’m pretty sure my story terrified poor old widow Margret, who lived all alone in her little cottage. Mrs. Harper trapped me in her kitchen for nearly a half hour just to tell me the story of how she’d had chickens stolen. I’d seen her coop, I’m pretty sure her particular thief was a fox, especially since she said there were lots of feathers everywhere after the theft.

As soon as I knocked on Farmer Brown’s door, I regretted it. Mrs. Brown invited me in for tea, but gave me the ugliest look she could. Apparently she’d already heard about my engagement to Jenny. I’d known she wanted me to marry her second oldest son, Sam, but I didn’t think she’d be so mean spirited about it. Her son hadn’t had any more interest in me than I did in him. I knew from some pretty reliable sources that he wanted to marry the blacksmith’s apprentice.

“If you had a man about the place this wouldn’t have happened,” she said knowingly.

“I thought you had a pig stolen a month ago and you have four grown men in your household.”

She sniffed, “Well yes, but I still think it’s dangerous for your family to live out so far alone without any man at all to protect you.”

“We’ve got Jacques,” And me with a fire poker, as well as two rather cowardly dogs. That had to add up to something I supposed.

“Fools don’t count.”

I could have slapped her for that, but I bit down my anger. My family couldn’t afford to lose our neighbors good will. I bit the inside of my mouth and forced myself to focus, “Have you had no new thefts?”

“Two of our ewes went missing yesterday from one of the outer pastures. We thought they might have just escaped but there’s no break in the fence.”

I made my excuses and left quickly. At the next house I learned of a stolen pig and there was a calf missing from another neighbor. I was seeing a pattern.

I went back home, hooked up the carthorse and headed into town. The town council needed to hear about this. I wasn’t sure if the Duke’s guard would give a damn but the town guard might at least listen. I took along the trunk, so I could take the dress to Jenny. I had little skill with a needle and I was afraid of ruining the dress.

I stopped at Jenny’s home first. She smiled warmly when I came into the shop and helped me bring in the trunk. Her mother was in the front room sitting at the desk and looking over a ledger with her second eldest daughter Mary.

She looked up and smiled at us but I could see the deep lines of pain and exhaustion at the edge of her eyes. Jenny and I set down the trunk and I took out the dress. Her little sisters gathered around us like a flock of geese, all eagerly trying to look at and touch the dress. 

“Girls, there’s work to be done, go see to it. Except you Mary, you stay and help.” Mrs. Harper  spoke softly but her daughters obeyed and the three of us were left in the room. She held out her hand without standing, “Now bring that here and let me have a look.” 

Her hands shook a little as she took the dress and held it up to the light that came in through the open shutters. She took one sharp intake of breath.

“I recognize this. I made it for your mother the year your father brought her to this town. Gods, I haven’t been able to do embroidery this delicate in years.” She ran her hands slowly over the swirling patterns that covered the bodice and sleeves. “She’d brought the silk as part of her trousseau. She described the pattern to me and had a handkerchief with the embroidery, even showed me how to do the stitch pattern. She was a proper lady your mother, sweet natured and never held herself above anyone.”

She looked at the dress and then at me as she considered the sizing. “Such a frail thing as well. It’s probably for the best that you take more after your father than her.”

I looked down at my hands and said nothing. I didn’t really know what my mother had looked like, beyond that she’d been light of hair and fair of face. Her image had faded in my memory to a hazy softness. When I looked in the mirror, I saw my father’s dark hair and eyes.

She gave me back the dress and I ducked behind the changing screen. Jenny’s eyes got wide when I came back. Her sister Mary just rolled hers and took up a pincushion and set to work marking alterations. After a few minutes of poking me with pins, Mary seemed satisfied.

I changed back into my normal clothes. When I mentioned going to the cobbler next to get shoes Mrs. Harper shook her head. “We can give you those. We found a supplier who makes cheap linen slippers and then we embroider them ourselves. They are popular with town women, especially for the ball.”

“What ball?” I asked.

“Up at the palace,” said Mary, clearly very excited about the topic. “The Duke’s eldest daughter has come of age and he wants to marry her off sooner rather than later. Apparently she’s been causing too much trouble cavorting with any willing woman she runs across and her father thinks marriage might make her amend her ways. He’s invited all the eligible nobles in this Dukedom and pretty much the rest of the kingdom. All the lesser nobles in town even got invitations too, I guess because the Duke didn’t want to risk snubbing them. We’re swamped with orders.”

She got down a big box of different sized slippers. I sat in a chair trying them on until we found a set that fit just right. I passed the plain white shoes back to Jenny.

“What do you want on them?”

I scrambled for words, “Can you duplicate the wave pattern from the dress or it is too complicated?”

Jenny glanced at the dress, “I think so. I’m just glad you don’t want flowers. I’ve embroidered so many flowers this week.”

I kissed her goodbye at the door and headed for the tavern. It wasn’t necessarily a place a woman of the town ought to go on her own but it was where I knew I’d find at least one member of the city council and certainly the captain of the town guard. Courting couples sometimes did go there and during festival times everyone drank there. Women who were traveling stopped and stayed there as well.

I knew I’d miscalculated the moment I walked in the door and was met by a wall of sound. Nearly half the small room was filled with men and a few women wearing the Duke’s blue cloak. There was a very familiar figure on top of one of the tables holding up a mug of ale and singing off key.

Aurelia’s voice trailed off the moment she saw me. I curtsied and then turned sharply on my heel and headed towards the other side of the huge room. I found both the mayor and head of the town guard well into their cups at a table near the fire.

I curtsied and when they didn’t notice me, rapped the table with my knuckles. Both men looked up red faced and vague.

“Afternoon Lady Ashley,” said Mayor Black.

“Afternoon, Mayor. If you’ve got a moment I want to talk to you about stolen livestock.”

“A fox get into your chicken coop,” said Thomas, the captain of the guard, grinning like he’d just said the funniest thing in the world.

“No, a goat was taken from my shed and my neighbor lost a pig from a pen and another a calf from a closed barn.”

The mayor waved his hand, “Bring it up at the next town meeting.”

“That is weeks away, who knows how many animals will be stolen by then. If you don’t want to deal with it, I’ll go talk to your wife. Everyone knows she makes most of the decisions in this town.”

It was a low blow but I was at the end of my patience. 

The major flinched, “No need to trouble her. Best sit down and tell me about it lass.”

I was about to do just that when a voice behind me said, “Yes, I’d like to hear what you plan to do about this livestock thief.”

I whirled around to find Lady Aurelia behind me and an embarrassed looking Robert beside her.  The two drunks at the table stumbled awkwardly to their feet to bow and I managed a curtsey, although it seemed a bit redundant.

Someone found Aurelia a chair and she sat. I told the entire story again. A few of the blue cloaks wandered over to listen, apparently seeming more interested in why Lady Aurelia was listening to a village girl talk about stolen goats than in the actual theft itself. My face burned and I hoped it seemed like I was just embarrassed to be talking to a Duke’s daughter.

When I was done Aurelia said very formally, “I’ll see that the thefts are looked into.”

“Thank you,” I curtsied and fled. I didn’t wait for the groom at the tavern stable just harnessed the horse to the cart and left as quickly as I could. I wasn’t very far down the road when I heard hoof beats.

I pulled the cart to a stop on an empty piece of road and waited. Aurelia appeared on her horse, with Robert a few paces behind on his.  I climbed down from the cart as she dismounted. I vaguely noticed that it was indeed the same horse as the one she had lost but I didn’t care.

The smile on Aurelia’s face filled me with a burning anger.

“Do you have any idea what you just did?” I snapped. “Are you trying to destroy my reputation?”

Her face fell, “What?”

“You spoke to me in a public place, when you had no reason to!”

“But you came into the tavern looking for me,” she protested.

“No, I didn’t. I was looking for the mayor because of the accursed goat thief. Don’t you think people are going to wonder why you cared?”

She shrugged and nudged at a rock with a pair of new looking boots. “They’ll just think I thought you were pretty and wanted to talk to you.”

“And then you rode after me! Assumptions will be made and I can’t have that. Not now that I’m engaged.”

“Wait, you’re engaged? Since when?”

“Yesterday.  So don’t worry, you didn’t tumble a promised woman, not that you probably haven’t before.”

She took a step back, “You regret what we did then?”

I felt something inside of me twist, “No, but it can’t happen again.”

“I understand.” When she raised her head there was a carefully crafted smile at the edge of her lips, “Let me offer you my congratulations on your engagement then. May you be very happy with her.”

She bowed and then went back to her horse, mounting and riding back towards the town before I could find any words. 

I climbed back into the cart and turned the plow horse towards town. There was still work to be done before sunset.

**...**

The kitchen smelled like an apothecary when I pushed in. The huge wooden table was covered with small piles of herbs taken down from the rafters and laid on linen clothes. My stepmother was standing beside a bubbling pot.

“What are you making?” I asked as I hung up my shawl.

“Distilled Feverfew brew. We’re low and I want to send you away with a properly stocked medical chest. I’ve seen Mrs. Harper’s kitchen and gods bless her but she hasn’t half the herbs she should. She relies far too much on the town chemist.”

I didn’t argue and instead rolled up my sleeves and began separating and tying up the herbs into small cloth bags. We put the bags into the heavy wooden box that was to be my medicine chest. All women had one, even town born ones.

As we worked, my stepmother talked, “There’s not much cloth for you trousseau but you are marrying a seamstress daughter so that is not such a terrible lack. I’ll send you with the big dye pot, the second spinning wheel, one set of carders, a Lazy Kate and the large loom. If harder times come, you’ll have a way to bring more money into your home.”

Of all the things we had sold, we’d never sold those. No self-respecting woman ever sold her wheel or loom. Nearly all our clothes were made from yarn my sisters and I had spun in the winter and I’d woven.

I paused in my movements, “Can you manage with what will be left?”

“We’ll find a way. When the spring shearing comes I may send Talia to you with the years wool. There’s more she needs to learn of dyeing and Lilia and I don’t have these strength to handle the dying caldron.

“I can come back to help.” 

“You’ll be too busy with the shop, a wife, and six little girls.”

I set down my handful of herbs and sat, so I could look at her properly, “The oldest aren’t so little, if you need me I’ll find a way to be here.”

She kept her back to me as she stirred the caldron, “You can best help me by becoming one less person whose life I carry the responsibility for.”

A hundred kinds of guilt knotted my stomach.

Slowly she hung the spoon on its hook and turned, “There’s only so much any woman can carry, it’s always more than you think but there are still limits. You’ll understand when you’ve a family of your own. Gods bless your mother, she carried you as far as she could and I’ve seen you the rest of the way. With you safe I can keep carrying your sisters, but that’s all I’ve got in me.”

I opened my mouth to speak but she raised her hand as she sunk onto the chair beside me. “You’re a strong girl, you can carry Jenny through her mother’s death, together you can carry those girls and that shop. That’s going to take everything you have. If you try to keep carrying this family too, it’ll break you. The Harpers are going to be your family now; you’ve got to accept that. It’s the only way we can all survive.”

My throat hurt and I reached for her hand and she clasped it. We sat in silence for a long time, until she stood and went back to stirring the pot.


	4. Chapter 4

 

That night I put all the goats in the barn. They didn’t like it, any more than the plow horse or the milch cow, but what could I do? Jacques watched me in silent confusion. He kept pointing at the goats in the stalls where I’d placing them and shaking his head.

I tried to explain about the thief and the necessity of keeping the goats safe but Jacques just made exacerbated motions. He seldom spoke, although he could hear and understood all that was said to him. I had heard him say yes or no a few times as well as names, but he’d done none of that since his father had died. 

In the end I told him to bar the door and stay inside the barn that night even if the dogs barked. Then I went back inside. I’d been trying for years to get him to sleep in the house, where it was warmer and safer but he’d never come. Even when I led him into the kitchen by his hand, he’d be back in the barn the moment I turned my back. 

Surely a thief who snuck around would not dare try to force a barn door bolted from the inside. 

The dogs did bark, just a little before dawn. I really hoped the thwarted goat thief hadn’t gone for the chicken coop. They weren’t half so valuable but we would feel their loss. I wasn’t going out there.

I couldn’t sleep. The moment light shone through the shutters I slipped from bed and went out with clogs, cloak, and fireplace poker. I found the door to the goat shed open and tracks that led to the barn. My heart froze in my chest, when I saw a dead dog on the ground its throat slit and the barn doors flung open.

“Jacques!” I cried. “Jacques! Jacques where are you?”

No one answered me from the dark barn, but then again he wouldn’t. “Jacques please, if you are there come here. Please come help me.” The one thing he always responded to was if I asked for help. 

I raised the poker and slowly edged towards the barn door. I looked into the dimness and was answered by the snort of a horse.

“Jacques!”

No answer. I took up the lantern by the door and lit it with a flint. I entered carrying the lantern in one hand and poker in the other. The horse was in his stall and so was the cow and the goats. I counted them in the dimness and found them all there. 

He was nowhere on the ground floor. I set everything on the ground and climbed up to the loft, lighting a second lantern in the dimness. I saw his bedding set snugly among the baled hay  in a partially walled off corner, the sheets were thrown to the side as if he’d risen quickly but there was no sign of him.

I scrambled down the ladder and hurried back outside. It took me only a few minutes to make sense of the tracks. Large boots had come to the goat pen and then approached the barn. The earth was stomped there; maybe the dogs had attacked the man as he got closer to the barn? 

That would explain why one lay dead. The man’s tracks never reached the barn but veered away heading back towards the woods. I saw a few dog tracks, as well in the fresh frost. Perhaps the surviving dog had given chase. I found a single set of familiar tracks leaving the barn. Jacques always slightly dragged his left foot. He’d left the barn.

That wasn’t like him. His tracks went to the dead dog and then in the same direct as the larger tracks towards the forest. Surely he’d not chased the man. He loved the dogs though. If he’d heard them baying, heard one cry out, he’d have gone to help them, even if he knew he wasn’t supposed to. He might have even gone into the forest after the surviving dog.

I felt a wave of sickness wash over me. This was my doing. I’d moved the goats. If I’d just left them the thief might have taken another one and gone, this never would have happened. Jacques would be safe. 

I ran back inside to get my boots and dagger. I had to go after him. Lilia stood from trying to kindle the ashes of the fire, coughing.

“Ashley, what’s happened? You look like you’ve seen your own ghost”

“Jacques is gone. I think the thief came last night and was chased off by the dogs. Jacques must have left the barn to bring back the dogs and now he’s gone. I’m going into the forest to find him. Go run to the neighbors and get help, tell them everything. Get someone to get the guard from town”

She went paler than she already was, “you can’t go alone.”

“I’ve got to. He could be hurt and I know this forest better than anyone.” I yanked my boots on and fasted my cloak over my wool dress.

“No, it’s too dangerous. What if you meet a bandit?”

“I’ve a dagger and a poker for that,” I slid the knife into my boot and the poker into my belt, barely remembering to take up my small medical bag, water skin and half a heel of bread as I turned for the door.

“I’ll come with you.”

“No get help.”

And I was out the door before she could stop me, not that she could have as sickly and frail as she was. Lilia was a head taller than me but probably less than half my own slight weight.

I moved quick enough to forget my cold and fear. The man’s large tracks quickly veered off and vanished in the dense forest floor but Jacques limping step and tendency to bump into low hanging branches and break them made him easy to track. Half of me wanted to call out to him but I fought down the urge for fear the thief might still hear.

Jacques moved for a long time in a straight line and then veered and then a little while later veered again. I almost lost the trail but then I found a red fragment of his shirt caught on a low branch. 

He must have given up on finding the dogs and tried to find his way home. Jacques always became lost so easily. It had happened so many times when he was a child, he’d wander and as soon as he was past our yard he seemed to lose all sense of where he was. I couldn’t even begin to count the number of times neighbors had brought him home, frightened and crying, as if he thought he was lost forever. He’d stopped wandering completely these last few years; perhaps he’d realized that if he went too far he might never be found.

I was so intent on my search, that I didn’t hear the branch break until it was too late.

The blade of the sword was cool against the back of my neck. I ducked down and swung back with the poker instinctively.

The bandit woman jumped back with surprising grace, raising her dented blade to block. I didn’t pursue and instead took a few quick steps back giving myself some space.

The greying haired woman laughed, “You’re not as helpless as you seem little girl. Did you come to check your snares, or are you after something else?”

I kept the poker raised, “What do you think I’m after?”

“Maybe you're curious about me. I’ve already seen that your noble lover wasn’t particularly impressive.” She lowered her blade and rested a hand lightly on her hip, “If you’re looking to shed a bit more of your virtue, I’d be happy to oblige you. The name is Robin by the way.”

“A fine woman you are, trying to charm me after one of your men has attacked my farm twice.”

She blinked, “What?”

“Someone stole a goat yesterday and came back last night.”

She sheathed her sword, “That wasn’t me or mine. We’re more in the highway robbery business than the livestock stealing one, your lover’s accursed horse aside. The town guard can’t be arsed to care about travelers who’ve lost a bit of gold but farmers will come after you with pitchforks if you take their chickens.”

I lowered the poker to my side and said nothing.

She sighed, “I don’t care if you believe me, but I’ve got to wonder exactly how good a goat it was that you’re willing to come into the forest alone in pursuit of bandits to get it back.”

“I don’t give a damn about the goat. The stable boy went after the dogs that chased the thief last night and he’s somewhere lost in this forest. I’ve got to find him.”

“I’ll help you find him. How old is the child?”

“Twenty-three I think, he’s simple minded and probably very frightened.”

She shifted her stance, “Ah him. He’s about a half mile from here crying beside the brook. I thought he was just running from something.”

“Why didn’t you help him?”

“A lot of things happen in this forest, I try not to get involved in most of them. I can take you to your friend though.”

I eyed her warily, “And if you don’t get involved why are you helping me?”

“Mostly because I’d like to tumble you, but also I’m feeling generous today.”

I didn’t trust her but Jacques trail had run dry. As the sun had risen the frost had melted and so had his clear prints. The time I’d spent talking to the bandit woman had cost me what little time I’d had left to find him, at least quickly.  I was no true tracker and I wasn’t going to be able to find him with a few disturbed leaves on the hard ground and broken branches.

“I won’t tumble you.”

“Yea, a lot of women say that. I find that if I wait long enough most eventually change their minds. Come on, let us find your friend.”

We set off through the forest. I slid the poker back into my belt but kept a hand on it. I didn’t for a second believe that we were truly alone. She probably had some minions hanging back. I suspected she knew where Jacques was though, she probably knew everything that happened in the forest. She might not be taking me to him.

Then again if her intention was to kidnap or rape me, she would have surely already tried. We were deep in the forest and there was no one to help me, aside from myself. She moved swiftly, her feet barely crunching on the leaves and it was all I could do to keep pace.

We went farther than I ever had before. I had no need to go very far into the forest just to gather herbs or check my snares. I kept track of the sun over my left shoulder and broke a branch every so often in the hopes that I would be able to find my way home.

I heard the brook before we reached it. Robin held up a hand to stop me. 

“He’s just ahead. Go and calm him before you bring him back.”

I nodded and edge foreword. I meant to approach carefully but then I heard low frantic sobs and something inside of me broke. 

“Jacques!”

I stumbled down the bank, the branches snatching at the hem of my dress. I saw a huddled figure curled up in the shelter of a willow’s roots.

Jacques raised his dirty tears stained face. “Ash?”

I knelt down beside him, “It’s alright Jacques, I’m here. You are safe now.”

How many times had I told him that? How many times had he believed me without question. He clutched at me like a frightened child. His right hand left red smears all over my arm. I caught his arm and found it unmarked. His left one wasn’t. An ugly gash ran across his shoulder and down half his arm. 

I opened my medical bag and tugged out a clean cloth to quickly make a bandage. It was nearly impossible to see how deep the cut was but it hadn’t come from a tree or an animal, only steel or iron could have cut him like that.

It took a long time to reassure him enough to stand and follow me back up the stream bank. He clung to my hand and seemed solid enough on his feet at least. Robin was waiting, leaning her slender frame against an oak and cleaning her nails with a surprisingly ornate looking dagger.

Jacques hung back from her as he did all strangers but made no sign of being afraid of her. I knew at least she wasn’t the one who’d hurt him.

“What will you give me in exchange for guiding you home? I know you can’t find your way back.”

A cold shiver ran through me and I prayed that she wasn’t asking what I thought she was. “I can ill afford to loose my cloak or boots but I’ve a medical bag with herbs to treat nearly anything.”

She gave me a slow look up and down, “If I wanted those threadbare things I’d have taken them along with your lover’s last week. And I’ve no need for herbs I can gather myself. Now as for other things…”

I had the knife from my boot in my hand in one quick movement.

She laughed, “Relax girl. I won’t take something that only has value to me if it is freely given. If I help you, what I want is a favor.”

“What kind of favor?”

“I don’t know yet, I want you to owe me one. That kind of thing is very valuable for a woman in my business.”

I knew how dangerous that kind of thing could be but I truly wasn’t sure if I could find my way home and Jacques needed more than a quick bandage.

“Alright, but I won’t help you steal anything or hurt anyone.”

She smiled a wolf’s grin, “I wouldn’t ask it of you. Now give me your word.”

“You have it.” I knew enough of the old stories to never take an oath lightly.

She set off back through the forest and Jacques and I followed.

It seemed a much longer journey in returning than during my frantic search.  I kept Jacques hand firmly in mine. He was showing clear signs of pain but there was nothing more to be done until he was safely home.

We had just entered a clearing when I heard Aurelia yell, “Get away from her.”

I turned in time to see Aurelia try to run forward. Robert caught her around the waist and shoved her behind himself, drawing his own sword. Robin drew her blade and met him halfway across the clearing.

They met with a crash of steel and separated just as quickly, like a pair of falcons dueling in the sky. Every motion was violent and calculated.

“Stop it! She was helping us,” I yelled. I tried to take a step forward but Jacques pulled me back. 

Robert cried out in pain as the bandits blade found his side. He stumbled and fell to one knee. Robin brought her sword down aiming for his neck but it never connected. Aurelia stood over him blocking the blade with an ornate sword of her own.

The bandit leapt back and then turned and ran, as swift as a fox before the hounds. Aurelia dropped her sword and knelt frantically beside her companion. Her hands were quickly stained as she tried to find the wound on his side.

Jacques released my wrist and I ran to them. 

I shoved Aurelia out of the way, “Get back. I know what I’m doing.”

I knelt beside the wide-eyed young man. He was taking quick pained breaths. I shoved his torn shirt up and breathed a sigh of relief. He’d been cut not stabbed. A deep gash ran along his right side just below his ribs.

I knelt closer and sniffed the wound. There was no foul odor, only the sharp tinge of blood; his guts hadn’t been punctured, not that I’d thought they were. He might have cut muscles though and that could be bad. He was going to need stitches no matter what and I couldn’t do them here on the dirty ground.

When I reached into my bag I found all the bandages gone. “Aurelia give me your shirt, it looks clean.”

She quickly undid her cloak and vest, yanked off the shirt and laced her vest back up to cover herself.

I tore the white embroidered linen into bandages and made a compress. I knew it hurt Robert but he made no complaint.

“Did you two come after me on your own?” I asked.

Aurelia flushed, “We came with the town guard but we lost them when I thought I heard something.”

“Have you any idea how far from them we are?”

She shook her head.

It would have been ideal to have Robert carried back on a stretcher but I didn’t know how far away help was and he was bleeding and becoming chilled every moment he spent on the ground.

“Do you think you might be able to walk?”

He nodded through clenched teeth, his handsome face pale as milk.

“Then we’ll try. Tell me if the pain sharpens. Aurelia take one of his arms, I’ll get the other. He’s too heavy to carry but we can support him.”

Together we got Robert to his feet. For such a slender young man he was heavy. Aurelia did her part and I was well accustomed to heavy work on the farm, small though I was. Robert made a sharp sound of pain but kept his feet. I led the way back, we were in a familiar part of the forest not far from where I set my snares. It was a slow stumbling journey and I was quickly exhausted.

We were nearly out of the forest when the town guard, or at least two of its younger members found us. They tried to take Robert from us but I didn’t want him jostled any more than necessary so I told them to go run and tell my stepmother to start water boiling.

A huge pot was already over the fire and my stepmother had the table cleared by the time we stumbled in. My sisters were tearing bandages. We got Robert onto the table with men’s’ help.

“Don’t we need a doctor?” asked Aurelia.

My stepmother looked at her with cool grey eyes, “I kept more men from death in the tents of the Carters war than most fools in a black cloak ever have the opportunity to kill with their bumbling attempts at healing.”

The next half hour was a blur. Lilia made the compresses and helped wash the wound. My stepmother boiled and threaded the circular needle with catgut but when the time came to bring it to the wound I saw that her hands held a slight tremor.

“You do the stitching Ashley. I need to see to Jacques.”

I took the needle and set to work. I’d learned on bits of leather as a child and later done a similar service for livestock that had been injured by predators. When neighbors were hurt, often badly in farming accidents, they came to us. I’d been assisting my stepmother for years and knew what I was doing.

Lilia had given Robert a sleeping draught before I began and he was still and soundless beneath my hands, only his slow breath a reassurance that he lived. When I was done, I wrapped the wounds in a compress. Aurelia and Talia helped me move him to a bed on the first floor. It was actually just a bare straw mattress we’d quickly thrown a few blankets over but there was no way to get him up the stairs to a better bed.

When that was done I left Talia to watch him and looked in on Jacques who was sleeping on a pallet beside the fire. My stepmother said he hadn’t needed stitches after all, the cut was merely a glancing one.

I kissed him on the forehead and stepped out into the cool air to catch my breath. I had just sunk in exhaustion onto the frozen steps when the door opened and Aurelia came out. She sat down wearily beside me and buried her face in her hands.

“Gods.” After a moment she shook herself and looked at me, “How badly is he hurt, truly?”

“If the wound is properly tended, he will heal cleanly. If it festers though…” I closed my eyes, “I’ve tended much worse from farm injuries and seen even children recover from what should have killed them and I’ve seen small scrapes fester and take strong men down to their graves.”

She shuddered, “I’ve never seen blood like that before, well not human blood, animals in the hunt don’t trouble me.”

I considered her, “You're trained to use a sword, haven’t you seen accidents in the training yard?” I wasn’t sure how well she knew how to use her blade but she had blocked at least one blow and saved Robert.

“I was taught by a fencing master. My father lets me carry a sword but he’s never permitted me to train in the yard with the guards like he does my brothers. What little I know of real fighting comes from Rob.”

Her voice trailed off on the name and she had to take a breath before continuing, “and now he’s paid the price for my mistakes again. Ever since we were children, I’d drag him along with me on my half thought out adventures and when things went bad or we’d get caught, he’d always be the one who got hurt or punished.”

“He’s your bodyguard right?” I asked carefully.

“And my unacknowledged half brother. No one talks about it but everyone knows. His mother was a castle guard who caught my father’s eye. She was sent away to a distant hunting lodge by my mother, the duchess, when she became pregnant. She died of a fever a few years later and my father sent for her son. Rob was brought up as a companion to my brothers and I.”

I had wondered if something similar might be the case when I first noted the strong resemblance between the two of them. I clasped her hand in my own. Words seemed insufficient.

The sound of hooves entering the yard jerked up both our heads. An entire column of soldiers thundered into the yard in a wave of blue cloaks and fine horseflesh. 

The first off his horse was a greying mountain of a man in a fine red cloak. 

“Aurelia! Aurelia where are you, you fool of a girl,” he bellowed.

Aurelia sprang to her feet, “Here Papa.”

He swept her up into his arms, “Thank the gods you are safe. I’d heard…” Then he shook her slightly, “What the hell were your thinking going into the forest alone! Were you trying to get murdered?”

He set her down and she stumbled half a step before finding her balance. 

“No Papa.”

“And where’s Robert, I’ll murder that boy for letting this happen.”

She looked down at her feet, “He’s inside. He’s hurt.”

“Hell.” He cursed and stormed into the kitchen. I heard Lilia yelp in surprise. I followed inside just in time to see Lilia rapidly curtsying over the broken shards of a dropped ceramic pitcher.

The Duke watched her with impatience, “Well speak up lass, where is he?”

Lilia stuttered but my stepmother entered the kitchen at just that moment. She took one look at the situation and straightened her back.

“And who in the seven hells are you sir? How dare you barge into a house full of sick people like a boar!”

The Duke actually looked a little abashed but recovered quickly, “I am your Duke madam.”

She considered him for a long moment before falling into a proper curtsey without ever lowering her head, “Then I welcome you to my home, my lord. If you seek your injured man he is in the next room.”

The duke offered her a shallow bow, “Lead on then goodwife.”

She led him to the next room. Lilia found her feet and then almost lost them again as Aurelia entered with two members of the Duke’s guards at her heels.

The taller of the two men said to her, “Fetch ale and bread for the men lass and where is the stable boy. The horses need water.”

Aurelia shook her head at him sharply. “We will not be imposing on these good people’s hospitality, not when they have already done so much.”

“I’ll show you where the watering trough is,” I said reaching for my cloak by the door. When Aurelia tried to follow me back outside I shot her a look and she stayed.

The young guard followed along behind me clearly a bit confused by the entire interaction.

“So you’ve no ale then?”

“We weren’t expecting guests.”

He shrugged, “Fair enough, it’s a shame though, all the families around here brew good ale.”

He was polite as I showed him where the trough and the pump were. He clearly couldn’t tell if I was a servant or a lady of the house and was opted to not risk offending me. I left him and the other guards at work filling the trough and watering the horses and went back to the house.

In the end it was decided that Robert would stay a few days before the castle sent a cart for him. My stepmother would not permit him to be moved again while his stitches were new. The duke gave my stepmother a small bag before bowing and leaving with his men and daughter in tow. I had no chance to say goodbye to Aurelia.

We watched them go and then went back inside. I heard a gasp when my stepmother dumped the bag out into her hand.

She held a palm of round silver coins. Slowly she set them one by one on the table and counted them. It was far more money than I had seen in years. Mostly I handled copper coins and looked at numbers in a ledger.

“Is it enough to pay our debts?”

She shook her head, “No dear child it’s not. Those are far greater than a handful of silver.” She swept the coins back into the bag in one quick motion, “It’s enough to respectably dower Lilia though.”

She looked at Lilia and Talia and me. “Do not speak a word of this to anyone. If a question ever arises, the Duke gave the bag to Lilia not to me. Do you all understand?”

We all nodded but Talia bit her lip and her mother saw, “I would not lightly ask a lie of you darling but if the silver were given to me then I would be obliged to give it to our creditors. My husband’s debts fell to me not to you girls when he died. If the silver is Lilia’s, she’s not obliged to pay it for my debts.”

Talia’s frown deepened, “Why does Lilia get all of it though. Shouldn’t I have a dowry too?”

My stepmother sighed and sat down, motioning for all of us to do the same, “Because she’s of marriageable age right now and you are not, and because she is sickly and you are not. Your health and beauty may be all the dowry you need when the time comes.”

Lilia nodded, “I courted with the bakers oldest son last fall but his parents refused when Mom went to talk to them. They didn’t say it but I’m sure it was because they feared my health was too poor. Silver might be enough for to them to change their minds.”

“But if John loves you he should marry you no matter what,” protested Talia.

My stepmother shook her head wearily, “It’s not John’s decision, it is his parents. If he and Lilia married, they’d be living in his parents household.”

She crossed her arms and pouted, “Well that’s not fair.”

“Few things are dear. Just remember to say nothing about the silver. Now go keep watch over the poor injured boy who’s in our charge”


	5. Chapter 5

Late that night the surviving dog limped home. Her paws were torn and bloody from running and one of her eyes was bruised and swollen shut. I fed her and let her curl up beside the fire with Jacques. For once in his life he didn’t try to go back to the barn.

Talia woke me shortly before dawn to tell me that Robert had a fever. I went downstairs and brewed willow bark tea and forced the half delirious man to drink it. 

I’d done the best I could for his wound, I’d stitched neatly but pus still leaked from the wound. I sat with him as the sky slowly lightened. He cried out in his sleep, mostly for his mother, sometimes for Aurelia. He kept telling her to climb down from a high tree branch.

I’d helped my stepmother care for many men and women through dark hours like this. I knew he was upon a knife’s edge and might begin to improve or fail within a few hours. I held his hand and sang to him the healing songs my stepmother had taught me.

There were many in town who would burn a woman as a witch, if she spoke a spell that was not a proper prayer but who could fault a woman for a song? Midwives sang to women through the birthing, mothers sang to their babies in the cradle, and healers sang their charges through illness and down into death, if it came to that.

It was barely dawn when there was a loud knocking on the door. When I opened it Aurelia rushed in. 

“My father wouldn’t let me stay yesterday but I came back as quickly as I could,” she told me and then hurried to Robert’s bedside.

His fever stayed unchanged as the sun slowly rose. I went out to make sure that she’d put away her horse and found two members of the palace guard waiting sheepishly in the yard. I told them to come into the kitchen and gave them porridge.

Aurelia helped me give Rob more of the willow bark tea. He’d reached a point in his fever where he wasn’t really seeing what was around him and pulled away from any touch. His fever peaked at about noon and then began to lessen.

I killed one of the hens that had ceased to lay and put it in a pot over the fire to make broth. Rob drank some when I pressed it on him. Aurelia stayed beside him all day, her face a mask of worry. I thought better of her than I ever had before.

At sunset the two members of the duke’s guard told her she had to go home. She stood reluctantly,

“He’ll be alright won’t he?”

“Gods willing.”

Robert slept that night and was alert by dawn. Aurelia came back again and sat with him through most of the morning. At noon I urged her from the room and gave her a bowl of soup at the kitchen table.

When she’d eaten I took her hand and led her out into the soft sunlight of the yard. It was never good to spend too long beside a sick bed. I noticed her horse contentedly rubbing his back against a post beside the barn. The two guards horses and the stable horse were also in the enclosure. Jacques must have thought it was warm enough for all of the horses to get some sun. 

I hadn’t wanted him back on his feet so soon but he’d slipped from the house that night and returned to the barn. I tried to tell him I would care for the animals but he just shook his head and went about his chores. I tracked him down once a day to change his bandages and that was the best I could do. He was healing cleanly, his cuts already nicely scabbed.

I climbed up onto the fence far enough away from the horse that I wouldn’t get knocked off. Aurelia joined me. I offered her a smile.

“So your horse really did come back.”

“I said he would, didn’t I? He’s a stubborn fool just like me.”

“The bandit said something about him being an accursed horse, he must have thrown one of them.”

“Good, I hope it was that bitch.”

I looked down at my swinging feet, “That woman was leading Jacques and me back, she helped me find him. She didn’t draw her blade until you drew on her and Robert attacked in your stead.”

“She nearly killed him, I’m no soldier but I know what a killing blow looks like. I can’t forgive that.”

There was no way to argue.

She kicked the fence post, “Besides, it was her people who stole the goat and hurt your stable boy.”

“I’m not so sure. She seemed genuinely surprised when I accused her of it.”

“She is a bandit, they lie. My father’s guard will catch and hang her and that will be an end of it. They’ve been all through the forest these last few days.”

I didn’t say anything about my debt, something told me that would be a fools move. Somehow I doubted they’d find the bandits anyway.

Instead I leaned back, considering the dark blue sky above us, “So I hear your going to have a ball?”

Aurelia spat, “That’s my father’s idea. He wants to marry me off and be rid of me.”

The red haired giant I had seen two days before had not seemed like a man looking to be rid of a daughter but it was not my place to say this.

“You are of marriageable age.”

“That doesn’t mean I want to be married. I’ve been chasing off suitors since I came of age.”

“You don’t want a wife?”

Something strange flickered across her face. “I don’t know. That might not be so terrible I guess. I just don’t want to leave the dukedom and, if I marry I’ll have too. My father wants to build a strong alliance and marry me off to a noble who’s the heiress to her family’s lands. Since I’m my father’s only daughter and I have a sizable enough dowry that’s possible, even if I’m not an heir myself.”

She sounded a little bit like she was reciting a lesson from the schoolroom. 

“The thing is though, if I leave to marry a woman, I’ll be living in her home and she’ll be the duchess or lady or baroness or whatever and I’ll just be her consort.”

“You won’t be duchess even if you stay though, not with two older brothers.”

“No,” She sighed and ran her hand along the rough wood of the fence. “I love my brothers and wouldn’t wish them gone but I envy them both. Henry will be duke and Marshal gets to be the head of his guard. If I’d been born a boy then I could go off and join the king's army but instead I’ve got to marry and I’ll never be anything. My father is letting me choose which suitor I marry at least, not that I much like any of them anyway.”

I laughed, “I suppose none are as pretty as me but they can’t be terrible.” My own boldness surprised me.

Aurelia cast me a quick flirtatious grin, “Oh your much prettier than any of them.”

“I’m so flattered. Do tell me about them.”

“Baroness Hawthorne is nearly twice my age and has a scar across half her face. She led her own troops in the Carter’s War when she was barely more than a girl. She gave me a Varcian sword as a courting gift. I suppose she’s attractive in a lean sort of way but she’s cold and serious all the time. She said she’d teach me how to fight properly but I’d have to put aside all my carousing.

“Countess Kepler is about the same age as Hawthorne. She’s plain of face and figure, but good-natured enough that it doesn’t matter.  She’s a widow though and I think she’s still grieving. All she ever does is talk about her dead husband. 

"Lady Isabella’s almost as pretty as you and the same age but she’s a flighty thoughtless creature. I can’t stand to listen to her prattle on for a half hour much less a lifetime. And then there’s Duchess Melville. I really don’t like her. My father said we had to invite her or it would look bad but I wish he hadn’t.”

I tilted my head to the side. “I’ve heard of her, she’s the duchess  of the neighboring lands. Isn’t she supposed to be very beautiful?”

Aurelia spat, “beauty isn’t everything. There’s something ugly in her eyes and I’ve heard rumors. We were unofficially engaged for a while. She entered into negotiations with my father before I came of age. A marriage would have been a good way to strengthen the alliance between our families and settle some property disputes. The engagement wasn’t to be officially announced until I old enough to wed. She came to visit the summer before I turned sixteen.

“She was formal and polite but something about her felt off. She looked at me like a hound considering a hare, and not just like she wanted to tumble me but something darker. The day after she left my father came and told me that the engagement was broken. I never found out exactly what happened but there were rumors that she’d done something to one of the serving maids. My father found out and it was bad enough for him to decide he didn’t want his daughter marrying her.”

I wasn’t sure what to say.  Aurelia wasn’t waiting for a response. She took a few slivers of apple from her coat and held out her hand towards her horse. He came trotting over eagerly, so did the rest of them.

She wordlessly passed me some apple pieces and I did my best to feed the plow horse without losing any fingers. I hadn’t fed the poor animal anything resembling a treat in a long time. He got not nothing but oats and hay. If there were apples we ate them ourselves.

Aurelia stroked the stallion’s main, “I’ll probably end up marrying Baroness Hawthorne, if my father really does mean to let me have a say in it. He probably will, he listened when I said I would only consider female suitors.  Baroness Hawthorne is not dumb like Lady Isabella or heartbroken like Countess Hawthorne. Her lands aren’t so far from here. I doubt I can teach her to laugh but at least she’ll let me learn to be a better sword fighter.” 

Something in her tone reminded me exactly of how I had felt the moment I truly knew I was going to marry Jenny. Baroness Hawthorne wasn’t a bad match, but marrying her would mean narrowing her life and world.

“You know it is funny, me saying all this too you.”

“We have tumbled.”

She cast me a sideways glance, “I’ve tumbled a lot of women and I didn’t feel like sitting about and talking to most.”

I leaned close enough to brush a loose strand of hair from her face, “You’re worn thin worrying about your brother and you want a shoulder to lean on. Don’t go thinking there’s anything special about me.”

She caught my hand, pressing it against her cheek, “I’m allowed to like you aren’t I?”

“Yes,” I leaned in and kissed her. I should have known better. I just wanted her so much it almost hurt.

She smiled when I leaned back, “And here I thought you were engaged.”

I turned away, “It was just a kiss, and you’ll be engaged soon enough as well.”

Her arms slipped around my waist pulling me closer, “You know it’s not really a sin laying with whoever you wish when your still unmarried, it doesn’t become adultery until you’re breaking vows.”

“And what about promises.”

“You haven’t actually pledged her fidelity yet, just your hand.”

I don’t know what I would have done next because a loud cough rang out from the kitchen steps. I turned and saw my stepmother standing there with a broom in her hand and a scowl on her face. Aurelia and I edged apart trying not to look guilty.

“Your friend is asking for you Lady Aurelia.”

Aurelia scrambled from the fence and hurried in without a word.  

My stepmother set about angrily sweeping the porch. I tried to follow Aurelia in but my stepmother caught my arm in a vice like grip.

“For the love of the gods child what are you thinking? You’ve everything to lose and nothing to gain in being seen like that with her.”

“We weren’t-”

“Oh yes you were, I’m no fool. Don’t you dare trade your future for a few quick tumbles with a woman who will soon forget your name.”

I flushed and pulled away from her, fleeing towards the barn before I said something I would regret.

… 

Robert could sit up by the next day. With his wound healing cleanly, he’d be well enough in short time. My stepmother said he should stay one more day and then she thought it would be safe to go, even her worry for me wasn’t enough for her to send an injured man from her house too soon.

Aurelia returned that morning and my stepmother watched her like a hawk. I had no hope of stealing a moment alone with her. I thought she left at sunset but when I went out to feed the chickens I heard her voice call me.

“Ashley?”

I set down my empty pail of chicken feed, “What the seven hells are you doing here?”

She stepped from the shadows beside the barn, “I had to see you again.

“We can’t do this.”

“Tell me to go then.”

I should have sent her away; it would have been the smart thing to do, the honest thing, the dutiful thing. I didn’t have it in me.

Instead I stepped into the shadows with her and caught her hand.  I tugged her around the corner of the dark barn to an empty storage shed. The rusty hinges creaked as I forced the door open and we stepped into the dust and darkness.

We kissed against the wall hungry and desperate. Her lips were warm and her hands strong and certain. My last thoughts of refusal faded as she sunk to her knees before me and ducked beneath my skirt.

We stayed in the shed far longer than we should have. She kissed me once before slipping off into the night. I straightened my clothes and crossed the yard back into the house. My stepmother was sitting at the table, sipping at willow bark tea. 

The lines around her mouth deepened when she saw me; “There’s hay in your hair child.”

I looked at my feet and my silence told her all she wanted to know.

“She’s left a mark on your neck as well. Don’t let her do that again unless you want the whole world knowing.”

“I…”

“I can’t stop you. You’re a grown woman and will do as you will. Let’s just pray no one finds out, least of all Jenny.”

Guilt knotted my stomach. It had been one thing to bed another when we were merely stepping out but to do it now that I had promised her my hand, well she deserved better. 

Something in her face softened, “Sit and listen. I hoped to never have this particular talk with you but I fear I must.”

I sat.

She took another sip of her tea and leaned back against her chair, her shoulders hunched with a pain so strong not even the tea could completely ease it. In the firelight I could see just how grey her hair had gone, streaks of silver lightening the deep black it had once been.

“If she were just a village girl, I would not be so worried Ashley, but she is a noble and they are dangerous. You can’t trust them ever. They always use you and throw you away like you are nothing.”

“I’m of noble birth,” I said softly.

“Your father was a merchant and you mother was a noble woman, whose family cast her out for marrying him. That is not the same, even if you are called "lady". You’ve lived little enough of your life with the privileges your name might have brought. You do not understand what these people are like.”

“And you do?”

She rubbed at her forehead with her lined hand, “Yes, I do. Have you never wondered why my daughters took your father’s name, why they had none but mine before I wed him?”

In truth I had never given it much thought. I had been a child when my stepmother and sisters came and they did not speak much about their past. Talia barely remembered the city and Lilia was not much for words. A few times I had been able to get her to tell me stories about the city but that was it.

“I wasn’t a widow when I married your father. Lilia and Tali do not even share a father.” Her hand shook as she lifted her cup again. “Lilia’s father was an officer in the military during the Carter’s War, a young noble who was billeted in my family’s home for the winter. I was just a farm girl and he was very charming. He seduced me that winter and I knew I was with child well before spring. I begged him to take me with him when the army moved on but he refused and left me pregnant and friendless. My family threw me out when I could hide my condition no longer.

“I had nowhere to go, nowhere to turn, so I went after him. I thought I could change his mind. He pretended he didn’t even know me when I forced my way into his tent, denied the child was his, told me to go home. I couldn’t go home though.

“The camp followers showed me what kindness they could and I did what all desperate women do to survive. For a few stolen moments of passion in the depth of winter, I lost all control over my body. Lilia was born on the eve of the battle of Broken Shield. That winter was a bad one. Lilia and I both had camp fever and it is a miracle she survived, many did not.

“That spring I caught the eye of one of the generals, a lesser lord. He made me his mistress. Lilia and I did not have to starve again. When the war ended he took us back with him to the capital city and it was there that Talia was born.

“I learned how to play the part of a mistress in society. I had to. I knew he was tiring of me long before he left me. I begged him not to abandon us, Talia was his daughter, but when he threw us out he denied it. How could she not have been his when I’d lain with no man but him the year she was born?

“I went to one of his friends I’d seen watching me with hunger in his eyes and he made me an offer. None of my keepers ever lasted more than a year or two but I was able to keep my daughters safe and fed. That was my life until I met your father. I had beauty and learned graces and he needed a wife who could seem well bred.”

I opened my mouth to speak and yet found I had no words. 

She sighed, “I don’t mean to speak ill of him Ashley. Thomas was as good a man as ever was. I just mean our marriage was as much for practical reasons as any other. He was tired and lonely from the loss of your mother and had a daughter he didn’t know how to raise on his own. I was sick of the city and would have given anything for a safe place to raise my own daughters without the fear we’d be thrown out any day. We helped each other. If only he’d been a bit more careful with his investments… well that is past and done.”

She considered me carefully “You do not think less of me now do you?”

“No, of course not.” She was still my stepmother, who else could she be? I think I understood her better, both the rigid core of strength that defined her and the guarded look that never truly left her eyes.

I took a slow breath, “I understand all you’ve said but Aurelia is not like any of those people who hurt you, and it’s not as if she can get me with child.”

“No, but do not let that lull you into a false sense of security. She can destroy your reputation without even meaning to and that’s almost as bad. Do tell me, is she charming and attentive, seemingly kind?”

I flushed, “yes…”

“So was the young noble who ruined me, a smiling face quickly turns to a scowl when the situation changes. Don’t be taken in. She cares for no one but herself, that’s how they are raised to be.”

I wanted to argue but then I thought of how often Aurelia had failed to listen to me, seemed to assume everything was about herself. That gave me pause.

She reached across the table and pressed my hand, “Don’t say anything, just think on what I’ve said. That’s all I ask, now go and get some rest, it’s been a long day.”

I went silently up the stairs. My sisters were already asleep when I crept into the bed.


	6. Chapter 6

That morning a cart came from the castle to take Robert. He was looking much better and could stand and walk on his own, though my stepmother warned him not to ride while the stitches were new. He thanked us with all proper manners for our help.

We sent him on his way before the sun was barely past the horizon. There was no sign of Aurelia and I had a day's work ahead of me. There were a lot of things that had to be done to prepare the farm for winter, the greatest of which was the barn roof needed some patching and tarring after the fall storms. 

Jacques was mending well but I feared to take him up onto the roof with me. He could never seem to focus on a task long without supervision, aside from the care of animals, and I didn’t trust him to remember how dangerous a roof could be.

I climbed up and set Talia to boiling tar and sending buckets and tools up to me by a pulley system. As I worked I wondered who would fix the barn next fall, it was a two-person job at the least and Talia would be the only steady hand left on the farm. Then again, if the creditors had their way, there might not be a farm by then.

If Lilia could turn that silver into a marriage, then it would be only my stepmother, Talia and Jacques. As a daughter it should have been my duty to open my home to them but I might not be able to. I hadn’t seen the finances of the seamstress shop but the well-repaired state of the girl’s dresses told me that there wasn’t enough money take in three new mouths. When I married Jenny my first duty would be to her and her sisters.

I was so caught up in my thoughts I didn’t pay much mind when I heard hooves upon the road or when the ladder creaked.

“Hello beautiful,” said Aurelia leaning against the roof.

It seemed a funny thing to call me with my hair a sweaty mess and my oldest skirt hiked halfway up my hips but I still smiled.

Aurelia pulled herself all the way up to the roof, standing with an easy grace on the uneven shingles. “What are you doing all the way up here?”

“Fixing the barns roof, what does it look like?”

She gave a doubtful look at the tar bucket, shingles and hammer, “Can I offer some assistance.”

“Do you know anything about tar?”

“What do you think?” she said with an  untroubled shrug.

“Best you keep away from it then. Your clothes are worth more than the barn.”

“These? They are just riding clothes,” she looked down at her white linen shirt, grey linen breeches and dark polished boots. The sheer hours of skilled spinning, weaving, cutting and sewing that had gone into each piece was probably staggering.

“That may be but some poor soul probably has to clean and repair those clothes and I won’t make more work for her.”

Her face fell, “I could get my guards to help then.”

I raised an eyebrow, “I doubt they know more about tar than you do and besides it’s not their job.”

She looked as if the wind had been taken of her sails, “Never mind then.” She tapped at a loose shingle with her boot, “I suppose I am a bit useless with this sort of thing.”

Something in my heart softened, “We all know the things we need to, to get by, and seldom more than that. You do not know the business of farms any more than I do that of castles. If you took me to a ball, I would not know how to waltz.”

At least not properly, I knew the basic festival dances and when I’d been a very small girl my father had shown me how to waltz on his feet.

She raised her head hopefully, “I could teach you to dance.”

I shook my head and set back to prying up loose shingles, “and where would I do that?”

“At my ball of course,” she said as she sat down dangling her legs over the edge. “My father’s invited nearly all the nobles in the dukedom and even some of the wealthier merchants in the town. It wouldn’t be hard for you to slip in.”

Something my chest tightened and I didn’t dare look up from the roof. “That’s a fools game if I ever heard one.”

“No, I really mean it. You are a lady aren’t you? You’ve every right to be at the ball.”

I set down the hammer before I dropped it. “No, I don’t Aurelia. I have no place in that world. I may be a lady by birth but I clean fireplaces and fix roofs.”

“We could sneak you in. I’ll find you a dress and you can give a false name, so many people will be there no one is going to notice.”

I stood angrily, accidentally sending a loose tile skittering over the edge of the roof, “And what if I were recognized, as I would be since people from the town will be there? Sneaking into balls at the castle isn’t something that farm girls engaged to seamstresses do. Life is not a game Aurelia, actions have consequences even if you seldom have to face them.”

She hunched her shoulders, “I’m sorry, it was a dumb idea.”

I felt a little guilty. I sat down besides her, swinging my own feet. “Not dumb, but definitely a fantasy. Believe me if I thought for a second I could get away with it I’d do it.”

She covered my hand with her own, “You wish you could dance with me then?”

“Yes,”

“I could still teach you.”

I rubbed my thumb against her palm and felt her shiver, “What up on the roof?”

“Even I’m not that big a fool. I was thinking in the forest in the clearing just behind the barn. Do you think you can slip away again tonight?”

Every bit of good sense I had told me to say no but gods I wanted her. “I’ll find a way.”

“Good, I’ll be waiting,” she stood.

Before she could climb down the ladder I said, “You know you can’t come during the day again. If you don’t have a reason to be here, the neighbors will talk.”

“I know. I’ll guard your reputation Ashley, I swear it.”

She was barely down the ladder before Talia scrambled up it.

“She came back!” she said excitedly.

I rolled my eyes and set about working again so she wouldn’t see my face, “Yes she did. She wanted to thank me for my help.” It was a small lie.

Talia flopped down next to me, watching me with her quick dark eyes, “I bet she just wanted to see you. She’s courting you isn’t she? She and Jenny are rivals for your heart, just like in a ballad, one poor suitor and one rich one. Which will you pick?”

“If you keep letting your words get ahead of your good sense, you’re going to fall,” I told her.

“I’m not dumb just because I’m young.”

I paused long enough to look at her, “No you’re not but you do chatter like a magpie sweetheart.”

She rolled her eyes, “You sound just like Mom. And even I can see that there’s something between you two. You should have seen her face when I ran into the tavern to find the Town guard and tell them you were in the forest trying to save Jacques from the bandits.”

Lilia sending Talia to town as a messenger might have been slightly questionable but the girl was quick and Lilia couldn’t run without losing her breath. I did need to go into town soon and do damage control on whatever crazy stories were being told about the whole incident.

“Talia this isn’t a ballad, it’s my life. I’m marrying Jenny at the fall festival and that is the end of it.”

She scrunched up her nose, “If I were to choose, I’d marry the duke’s daughter. She’s more mysterious.”

That was not really the word I would have used to describe Aurelia anymore. Something else she’d said caught my attention though.

“If you were to chose? I thought you said you liked boys?”

She shrugged, happy to talk about herself, “Well maybe I think girls are pretty too.” 

“Really?” 

She nodded empathetically, “Yea and girls my age aren’t dumb smelly jerks like all the farm boys around here.”

Well, she was thirteen, which was basically when boys and girls became a bit dubious of each other. At that age I’d been fast friends with Jenny and in something of a mud clod throwing war with Farmer Brown’s sons. Then again I’d known plenty of girls who’d aided me in my mud war and then later grown up to marry farm boys.

I watched my sisters face carefully, “You don’t have anyone in mind do you?” If anyone other than a child her own age was sniffing around I had a fireplace poker to deal with them.

She flushed and then shook her head, “No. I was just saying that I think girls are pretty ” and then after a moment she quickly added, “and I still like boys who aren’t smelly.”

I hugged her, “Good for you then.”

…

I waited until my stepmother went to bed that night and then crept downstairs. I knew she’d hear me the damn things creaked but she didn’t stop me. She’d said her piece and I knew she’d say no more.

The night was moonlit and the yard empty. I’d let Jacques keep the injured dog in the barn, which meant the farm was unprotected. I needed to go get a puppy from a neighbor to replace the lost dog. Maybe I should wait until spring, so we wouldn’t have to feed it through the winter.

I crossed the yard in silence and walked more by memory than sight up the narrow path to the small clearing behind the barn. The small circle of trees was illuminated with silver light and there was Aurelia, leaning against a tree, her long legs stretched out and her arms crossed over her chest, half her form hidden by a dark cloak.

I didn’t bother with words just crossed into the ring and went to her. She caught me in her arms I kissed her with every ounce of need I felt.

I caught her hands when they began to tug at my clothes, “I thought you were going to teach me to dance,”

She laughed softly, “You would remember that now.”

I kissed her neck, “And do you not keep your promises?”

“Oh I do.”

We pulled apart and she set one hand on my hip and guided mine to her shoulder. Then she linked our left hands and we began to move. It was simple, step, step, turn, step, step turn. She whispered instructions as we moved, her breath warm against my ear.

She danced with the same grace that she climbed or rode. I closed my eyes and for a moment imagined myself in a different life. If my mother had lived, if my father had, if there were no debt to be paid off, if everything were different I might have truly been a lady with softs hands and soft shoes. I might have gone to the ball and I might have danced with her on a hard stone floor in a room ablaze with lanterns.

I couldn’t hold the image though. It flickered and faded replaced by another, the memory of dancing with Jenny at the last fall festival, the feel of grass beneath my boots and my hair loose about my shoulders, the tap of the drum and song of the fiddle. What I really wanted, what my heart wanted was not to dance with Aurelia in a castle but in a field. It was as impossible a dream as the first.

I opened my eyes and found her watching me, her face half hidden in shadow. 

“Let me teach you a dance,” I whispered. “Let me show you what I know.”

I quickened our steps, the echo of the fiddle in my ears. I turned my wrist to twirl her, guiding her through the movement and then she did the same for me. We moved quicker and quicker as she easily learned each new step.

We were breathless by the time we slowed. She pulled me closer, kissing me hungrily and before I knew it we were on the ground, lying on her cloak, hands scrambling at each other’s clothes. Our desire burned like dry leaves, quick to spark and soon to cool.

I would have lain the whole night in her arms but it was cold and we were both shivering soon enough. She walked me back to the edge of the farmyard and waited in the shadow of the barn as I slipped into the house. No one was waiting for me this time.

…

My stepmother and I went into town the next day. The morning was cold and the carthorse was not eager to leave the barn. We wrapped up warmly and settled onto the cart. I worried about my stepmother going out in the cold, I knew how much it hurt her joints but she needed to go talk to the Baker family.

She had very little to say to me or I to her. She was a woman who often chose silence over angry words. I dropped her off outside the Bakers home and stopped by the blacksmith to drop off the horse to be re-shoed. 

The blacksmith’s apprentice, Katie, accepted the horse and promised that she’d be done in an hour. She was the only female blacksmith I’d ever met and probably her father had only trained her as an apprentice because he had no sons. There had been some whispers when she’d begun her apprenticeship but nearly everyone agreed that she was the most skilled person for shooing horses in the dukedom.

With the horse dealt with I headed for the seamstress shop. When I walked inside I found the place a madhouse of silks, colors and well dressed women. Jenny and her older sister Mary were busy pinning a dress on the mayor's wife while their mother talked to two women I didn’t know well but knew to be noble women with estates close to the town.

The rest of the girls, save for the two youngest, were running about hurriedly bringing ribbons and buttons and pins at their elders’ commands. A wave of guilt washed over me when Jenny looked up from kneeling to pin a hem and saw me. Her face was awash with worry.

“Ashley,” She stood brushing at her wrinkled dress. “I heard…” 

Everyone in the shop starred at us. Her mother said, “Jenny I’m sure Ashley doesn’t want to talk about that right now. Why don’t you go do the fitting on the dress, I know you finished the alterations last night,”

I bit at my lip and wished I could escape. I asked Jenny, “Aren’t you busy?” 

She shrugged, “I’m always busy but you’re not always here. Come into the kitchen.”

I followed her into the cluttered room. Warm embers were still burning and a pot of what was surely soup bubbled. She lifted the dress up from the trunk. “The shops pretty crowded. I’ll close the door and you can change in here.”

I nodded and had my bodice half unlaced before I realized that she was watching me. She blushed and looked away. I’d never understood how she could still seem so modest and innocent after what we’d done at midsummer.

I suddenly, desperately wanted that night back, the feeling of brilliant freedom and exploration before the weight of the world returned at dawn. I wanted her to reach for me like she had that night, not hesitate as she did now. I tugged my dress over my head and then my shift and stood there naked in the middle of the warm room. The linen shift couldn’t be worn under the silk dress.

When I raised my eyes, Jenny held my gaze. “Gods you are beautiful,” she said softly.

I took a step towards her but she was already holding up the dress and looking away again.

I took it, feeling something cooling inside of me. I slipped the dress over my head and turned around so she could lace the back. Her fingers were deft and quick on the laces, but they lingered on my bare shoulders for a moment and then crossed over my chest pulling me flush against her.

“I was so scared when I heard you’d gone into the forest all alone. Please never put yourself in danger like that again, I couldn’t bare it.”

“Jenny I…” I had just begun to turn and face her when someone began to pound at the door that connected the shop and the kitchen.

“Jenny! Jenny! Mom says to bring the bolt of red fabric from the storage room,” piped a young voice.

Jenny quickly opened the door and ushered in one of the smaller girls. The child spared me a quick glance and then darted down the hall.

“I’ll be right back,” Jenny followed her sister to bring the heavy bolt of fabric. 

I stood there alone in the kitchen feeling empty. The dress fit like a glove. Even without the shop's great mirror to look into, I knew it was beautiful but I didn’t want it anymore.

When Jenny came back she was shy again, quickly looking the dress over professionally and promising to shorten the sleeves a bit. She said the shoes weren’t ready yet either but she’d have them in time. She had to get back to the shop so I changed alone in the kitchen. I had known her long enough to realize there were things she wasn't saying but I was too caught up in my own problems to wonder.

When I stepped back into the front room there was a great clatter in the street. I ran to the open shutters with all of Jenny's sisters just in time to see a column or riders pass through the heart of town. They wore dark green on their cloaks and one carried a banner with the emblem of a wolf.

At the head of the seven riders, all wearing light armor and with swords at their belts, rode a tall woman with short greying hair. I could not see her face from such a distance but she carried herself with the rigid back of a soldier. I could see the glint of chain mail beneath her fine tunic and then she was gone, lost in the dust of the road.

"It's Baroness Hawthorne, Lady Aurelia's most likely suitor!" cried Mary.

"How on earth do you know that child?" asked her mother, who in spite of her illness was on her feet and curiously looking through the open shutters like the rest of us.

"Katie the blacksmith's daughter told me and she heard it from her friend Maggie whose sister is a maid up at the castle. Just a few days ago the duke got a letter form Baroness Hawthorne that she was going to arrive before all the other suitors. She wants a final chance to win Lady Aurelia's heart before the ball. The duke's allowing it because he likes her best of all Aurelia's suitors and wants her to pick her." 

"So you've been gossiping with Katie instead of doing your chores have you?" said her mother with a gentle smile.

"Only while waiting for her to fix the kettle," protested the girl.

I watched the dust settle on the road my chest feeling tight. I didn't realize that Jenny had come to my side until I felt her hand on my shoulder. She was watching me with those clear eyes of hers. There was something vulnerable, almost hurt behind them.

"Will you stay for tea?" she asked softly.

I flushed, "I've promised I'd meet my step mother at the bakers shop before noon. I'd best not leave her waiting."

Her hand fell from my shoulder, "Yes, best not."

I kissed Jenny formally on the cheek at the door and headed over to the Baker’s shop. When I came into the warm room with shelves lined with bread and sweets, the youngest daughter Gillie was behind the counter.

“Your mom’s back in the kitchen.”

I went through the door into the heavy heat of the bake room. My stepmother was sitting in a chair across from the baker David and his wife Margaret. Both women each had their backs stiff as poles and their faces carefully blank.

“Three nanny goats and my John has equal control over the silver paid in the dower,” said Margaret.

“One grown nanny and two female one year goats and they can have equal control over the dowry but neither can spend it without the other’s consent and in the case of separation Lilia takes the remainder with her,” said my stepmother.

“Two nannies and one kid.”

They shook formally and then finally seemed to notice me.

Margaret stood up, “Ashley, sit down. Have some cider. We are celebrating. Your sister Lilia will be marrying John at the fall festival.

I managed a smile and sat to drink sweet fall cider with them. I knew I should be happy for Lilia, if nothing else it would mean she’d be close to me in town. Hell it meant that I had one less sister to worry about becoming destitute. All the same, it still felt like my whole world was coming apart. 

Lilia liked John, maybe even loved him. She’d cried hard enough that summer when his family had refused to let them marry. A baker's life was probably the best she was going to find, warm, and well fed, but the constant labor of it was going to be hard on her.

We didn’t stay too long before saddling up the cart and heading homeward. My stepmother looked almost grimly satisfied.

“You’ll both be wed at the fall festival and I’ll have only Talia to worry about.

“She’d just thirteen.”

“Old enough to begin an apprenticeship. I bargained low and there’s silver left, enough perhaps to find her a place in the spring. There’s a silversmith three towns over who will train apprentices for the right price and all of his students have successfully begun shops of their own.  I hid a few of my rings from the creditors that I could never sell without attracting notice but should be able to pass to the smith under the table. Talia is good with her hands and she loves pretty things. She’s pretty too, when she’s old enough she’ll find a better spouse in Crossroads than here.”

Something in my chest hurt. I watched the empty road ahead, “But if she goes you’ll be all alone but for Jacques.”

“And if we lose the land, he’ll need somewhere too. If it comes to it, I'll have words with the innkeeper, he may be able to find a place for him."

"And you?"

"I'll find my own way Ashley, I always have."

...

The wind blew cold that night but I slipped from my bed as I had since that day on the roof and went out to meet my lover. My heart felt heavy in my chest with the memory Jenny's eyes. She might not know I was playing her false but she felt my distance and it was hurting her.

This had to stop, if I had any honor I would. So why couldn't I? When I saw Aurelia waiting in the clearing, her dark hair inky black in the moonlight I knew she was the only thing I wanted, that I'd trade everything, even the promises I'd made to a good woman who deserved better, just for another moment with her.

We lay down in passion and then curled up together shivering beneath our cloaks. I rested my cheek on the warm spot beneath her collarbone.

"This has to stop," I said softly.

"I know, but not yet, please not yet."

I closed my eyes and listened to the slow, steady beat of her heart. Jenny and I had never lain like this, so content and still. We'd scarcely known how to touch in the heat of passion, much less when it had cooled. We had ending up in an awkward tangle of limbs, my arm asleep under her shoulder for half the night.

Aurelia pulled me closer, "We could run away."

I felt tears seeping from my eyes, "And go where? How would we make our way or earn our bread? Life is not a fairytale my love." Gods I wished I could dream like her, to hope and leap blindly but the harsh necessities of my life had beaten that out of me long ago.

"You love me?" she said it so softly I barely heard her.

"Yes, as surely as I draw breath I do and it is because of that love that I will not take you from the world in which you belong."

"Or I take you from yours," her voice was torn ragged by a sob. "Gods, I wish I had never seen you kneeling upon those ashes like a spirit of the hearth, for surely this ache will break me."

"Nor you in the doorway, your hair shining with rain, like a goddess of the hunt."

We lay like that until nearly dawn, too cold to shiver and yet utterly unwilling to be parted. She left me just before the sun kissed the horizon and I made my lonely way back to my farm.

That day my heart was heavy, a stone within my chest. I could barely raise my eyes from the earth, turn the crank to draw water, rake the coals to make fire. All day Lilia was full of songs and joy for her new engagement but it was all I could do to force a smile when she spoke to me.

My stepmother saw and said nothing. She was as kind to me as she had ever been, speaking gently and pressing a mug of tea into my hand when night began to creep upon us after the short fall afternoon.

I should not have gone that night; even as I slipped form the house some sense of foreboding told me that I went with an ill tiding. Had I not gone that night Aurelia would have understood that I would never come again, we could have ended with those sweet final words. That was not what the fates had in store for us.

...

She rushed to me the moment I walked into the clearing, pulling me into a joyful embrace. 

"I've found a way, a way for us to be together!"

"What?" I barely dared speak. My heart beat against my ribs like a bird fighting to escape a cage. Hope is a cruel thing.

"Baroness Hawthorne promised me that, if I marry her, you can come with me as my lady in waiting."

My chest tightened, "and spend our lives stealing kisses in shadows?" Aurelia my love, that is too cruel for either of us to bear."

She shook her head, "No you don't understand. She knows about us, she guessed I had a lover when she heard rumors that I'd been slipping away every night. She's willing to let me bring you along as my secret lover, if I will give her my hand."

I pulled away from her stepping back. "She'd willingly be made a cuckold?"

Aurelia shrugged, "I think it is more that she does not believe me capable of fidelity and would rather my indiscretions be known to her and kept in her own household."

"Why does she even want to wed you then? Does she want you only for your dowry?" I took a slow steading breath, "Would she never ask you to go to her bed?"

Aurelia shifted uncomfortably, her fine boots crunching on the frozen grass. Had there been enough light I imagine I would have seen her cheeks flush. "No, she wants me, of that I am very sure. She made it very clear that she would allow you to remain with me under the condition that I never neglected her bed for yours."

Something cold and ugly reared within me. My stepmother's story was ringing in my ear. "So I would be merely your kept woman then? A pretty pet cared for only so long as I pleased you and discarded just as easily?" 

Aurelia's reached for me again and I moved away from her. She raised her arms in pleading, "No my darling, no. I love you. I would never abandon you. Can't you see that this is a way for us to be together? We don't have to run away, I don't have to forsake my family or my name."

"And what about me! What of my name and reputation!"

"You'd be my lady in waiting. That is an honorable position"

"And your whore! Don't pretend that people wouldn't know why I was there. They always know!" 

Aurelia straightened her back, "What so you'd rather be a respectable goodwife in a poor sewing shop than a servant in a castle for my sake?"

"At least I would be mistress of my own life."

"I thought you loved me!"

"I thought you did too! If you really loved me, you wouldn't ask this of me like it was nothing. I have everything to lose and you nothing!"

She shook her head sharply, "Fine, then marry the honest little seamstress and cling to your good name. I doubt either can make your back arch or cry out in the night as I have."

I think she regretted her words as soon as she spoke them but it was too late and they kindled my own anger.

"I will, and may you find what sad pleasure you can with that stone faced warrior. I'm sure you'll find some other woman to give her horns."

Her face became a mask. "If that is all you think of me then I am glad to be leaving you. I wish you a good life Lady Ashley for our paths will not cross again." 

Then she was gone, bolting into the forest like a fox before the baying of hounds. I found my voice and called after her.

"Aurelia, please Aurelia come back!"

But she was already gone. I stood there for a moment shivering before the weight of what I had lost descended upon me and I sunk to the ground sobbing as I had not since my father died.


	7. Chapter 7

When my stepmother came downstairs the next morning to find me curled up beside the fires dying warmth she knelt down beside me, though it must have hurt her knees terribly.

"It is over then?" she said softly.

"Yes."

She pressed my shoulder with her bony fingers, "It will get easier, you may not believe it now but it will. Now brush the ash from your skirts and stand. Today I need you to take your sister into town today so she can give the baker’s son her answer. She cannot handle the plow horse and cart on her own."

I did as she said, my bones weary, my heart heavy. Lilia was too excited with her own life to notice my silence when she came down that day. Talia did but the moment she opened her mouth to speak a sharp look from her mother closed it.

I harnessed the horse. Then I set off with Lilia to help her secure her future. All the way she talked excitedly about the coming marriage. She confided in me that she and the baker’s son had never stopped seeing each other, they'd been waiting for him to save enough to begin a new shop in another town, and then they could have wed without his family’s permission.

The money had been slow to come and they were both relieved that they could simply wed now. She had told me none of this before or perhaps I had not made myself available to listen. I felt a twinge in my heart that perhaps over the last several months I had not been a very good sister.

I left her at the baker’s steps and went to the seamstress's shop. I wanted nothing but to hide away but I could not come to town and not go see Jenny. People would talk.

The moment I came into the shop she saw something in me. She rose from her chair, setting her sewing aside and took my arm, "Come and walk with me, take me away from the clatter of little girls.

We left before her mother could protest about the work the required doing or possibly the propriety of us being unchaperoned, although even in our village engaged couples were given some freedom.

We walked together through the town and down the path that would take us to the river. We walked along the banks of the Rocky River hand in hand as we had so many times as girls our heads pressed close together as we shared secrets, and then more hesitantly when we had begun to court.

When we were far enough from the eyes of others we stopped beneath a great weeping willow and I spread out my shawl so we could sit down on the cool earth.

She leaned her back against the tree’s strong trunk and reached out towards me almost tentatively, "Will you sit with me?"

I sat beside her and then almost hesitantly rested my head on her shoulder. She stroked my hair and suddenly I was crying, small desperate sobs my face hidden in her cloak. She held me as she had so many times before through the heartbreaks of our shared youths. In that moment all I wanted was my friend and confidant back, not this stranger who was my fiancé.

When I had no tears left to shed she helped brush the hair from my face, "There's someone else isn't there?" She spoke without accusation or anger, just a sort of restrained sadness.

I nodded weakly, afraid to look up, "Yes."

"If I released you from our engagement could you be with her?"

"No, she's lost to me now."

"Were you in love with her when you gave me your hand."

"No, I'd lain with her once but I didn't love her. I never meant to love her but it happened."

"Did you ever love me?" there was so much pain in her voice now, raw with her own tears.

I forced myself to sit up and look her in the face. Her blue eyes were wide and vulnerable.

"I've cared for you since we were girls. If you had asked me at midsummer I would have said I loved you as truly as any lover could. Had I never met her I would have never realized how much deeper such feelings could burn." I covered my face.

She closed her eyes, silent tears leaking from the sides, "If we wed, do you think you could grow to love me?"

"I...I love you Jenny, I always have, just not the way you love me."

"But you care about me?"

"Yes, gods yes." In truth I wished I cared less, it broke me to see that I was hurting her.

She took a slow, steadying breath, "And do you think you could build a life with me?"

I thought of the shop and her sisters and all the long years that lay ahead and for the first time such a prospect did not seem so lonely. If I could not have Aurelia then I would content myself with my dearest companion, "If you would build one with me."

She took my hand in her own and kissed it, her lips soft and warm against my chilled skin, "then we will wed at the festival."

"You deserve better."

She sighed wearily, "But I want you and, if you are still offering me your hand, I will take it. My mother is dying and I can’t run that shop and raise all of my sisters on my own. I need you."

"Then I give you my hand freely."

Her grip tightened against mine and then for the first time that day she smiled.

"Gods I've missed you these past months."

"And I you. It may sound strange, but since midsummer I’ve sorely missed the way we talked so freely when were merely friends."

"Then come what may Ashley, even when we are wed and lovers again, let us always remain the friends we once were."

I kissed her cheek, "Marriages have been made of less."

"And more," she said softly, "but we must make the best of the cards fate has dealt us."

...

The next week was a blur of preparations for the fall festival and Lilia's and my marriages. I spent most of it in the backbreaking labor required to get the farm ready for winter. After the fall festival I would not be there to help anymore. I worked until my muscles ached and my fingers bled and for a moment I could forget the pain in my chest.

I repaired all the sheds, pulled down the heavy winters shutters on the house and with Jacques’s help slaughtered two of our pigs and set the meat to smoking. My stepmother busied herself preparing trousseaus and a proper healing trunks for both Lilia and me.

She gave Lilia what was left of the better linens and the one good dress of her own she had saved from her youth. Talia was at first excited and then began to grow rapidly more and more clingy as she realized that both of her sisters were about to leave her.

I did my best to reassure her, promising she could visit me in town any time she wanted, even though I knew that would not be likely or easy. My stepmother might well be able to find her an apprenticeship but that would have to wait until spring. No one took on new apprentices in the fall when there was little work to be done and they would have to feed them through the winter.

I did not go to the clearing nor expect to see Aurelia again. I certainly did not anticipate what happened the day before the castle ball.

...

It was two days after I'd last seen Aurelia when a lone horseman came into the yard. I recognized him. Robert offered me a polite bow and Jacques a nod as he came to take his horse.

I crossed the yard to him, resting the small bag of chicken feed I had been spreading, on my hip.

"The castle sends greeting Lady Ashley."

"And this farm welcomes you goodman Robert. Come have a cup of tea and tell me what business brings you here." Even my own grief over Aurelia would not make me speak rudely to a guest, certainly not one whose skin I'd stitched with my own hands.

He followed behind me towards the house, "I hoped your mother might see to my stitches. She told me they had to come out this week and in truth I'd rather she do it than the castle healer."

"Of course, come in I'll put the kettle on."

When we stepped into the kitchen the fire was burning low and the room empty. I suspected my stepmother was well into her midday nap, she'd been sleeping more and more lately. I had no intention of waking her. I knew perfectly well that Robert had come to speak to me on Aurelia's behalf, I just wasn't sure I was ready to hear what he had to say.

I stirred the coals and set a pot to boil for tea and sought out my medical bag. It was more than well stocked. My stepmother had dried me enough herbs to tend a lifetime of sick children and I'd need it in Jenny's household.

I put a knife to the fire to clean both sides of it and then set it on the hearth to cool, "My stepmother's resting, I can see to you. Please take your shirt off."

He shrugged off his vest and then his clean white linen shirt. Even after the recent week of his illness, he had the well defined shoulder muscles of a man who made his way by his sword arm. I'd never been moved by the male form but I knew beauty when I saw it.

That aside I was glad to see that the skin around his wound had healed to a clean pink, with no sign of red. I took up the cooled knife. His eyes went to it.

I gave him a gentle healers smile, "Lie down on the cleared table, best we get this done quickly."

He did as I said, stretching out on the cleared table. When I looked at his side I found the clear lines of the goat thread laid against his side. No infection. In truth it was good he'd come to me when he had or his skin would have started to heal around the stitches.

I laid a hand on his shoulder the way I'd often seen my step-mother do to calm someone she was healing and then set to cutting the first stitch.

"Aurelia sent me to give you a message," he said softly.

"I'm glad she did, its past time these stitches were out. Your castle healer does not know his business. Hold your message until I've seen to you."

He winced as I began to tug the threads out but uttered no complaints. My work was soon done and he sat up on one arm; his face so similar to hers but far more serious.

"She wanted me to tell you that she regrets the words she spoke in anger. She said to tell you that she loved you truly and always will, whatever paths you both take. She asked me to give you this."

He lifted a necklace from his own neck; it was a simple wooden charm hung on a leather string. I took it from him with shaking hands. It was a poorly carved lovers heart, set within a crown of brambles.

Of all the things I had ever expect of Aurelia, it was not this gift.

"Did she choose this?"

Rob flushed, "She wanted to send you her mother's gold necklace but I told her you would have to always hide it, so she gave me this instead. She carved it when we were children. She said she was making it for a love she'd meet someday."

My heart ached and my hands shook. I slipped the charm over my neck and under my dress. "Tell her I regret my own words. Tell her I loved her as truly as she did me. Bid her forget me. She must to choose a wife at her ball and I will wed the seamstress's daughter at the fall festival.”

I saw something sad in his blue eyes, "I'll give her your words."

Deep inside of me my heart broke, "I can't fight for her Rob, this isn't a fairy story. There is no way that could end well for her or me."

"I know," he said gently, "I'm the bastard born son of a thoughtless noble father and a common mother who had less sense than you. You're doing what is best for Aurelia."

Guilt tugged at me, "How is she?"

"Heartbroken but surviving,"

"Give her this." I tugged a simple metal chain with a child's bronze ring from around my neck. It was too small to fit any finger but my pinky now and the only gift of my father's I still had. The creditors had taken all the little silver rings he'd brought me from his travels. He'd bought it for me at a Spring Festival from a traveling tinker, I could still remember taking the tiny thing from his lined hand in the warm spring sun.

I kissed the ring and gave it to Rob. He pocketed it and stood, reaching for his shirt. "I will."

The kitchen door banged open as Talia entered carrying a basket of tools. Here eyes went wide and there was a loud thunk as she dropped her basket to the floor. She dropped a quick curtsy,  her eyes never leaving the young man's naked chest.

"Robert came back to get his stitches taken out," I told her.

"Oh," she said. "Um will you stay for tea?"

Robert shook his head politely and quickly tugged his shirt on, seeming suddenly modest. "I'm afraid I cannot Lady Talia, I've got business in town."

Talia blushed deeply at being called a lady.

Robert took his cloak from the wall and offered me a final nod, "Thank you again for your help Lady Ashley. I am fairly certain that I owe my life to your mother's and your care."

"I am glad you healed well." The words felt like ashes in my mouth but I did not know what else to say. It was too late to give him any more messages for Aurelia.

He left and Talia went to the door to watch him fetch his horse from the yard. She leaned back against the doorway and almost tripped over the dropped farm tools.

I felt a laugh bubbling up to my lips in spite of my own grief, or possibly because of it.

"What?" Talia shot me an indignant look and knelt to begin to gather up everything she'd dropped. "I was just looking, nothing wrong with that."

I began to put my supplies back into my medical chest. If I could just focus on a simple task I wouldn't have to deal with deepening ache inside of my chest.

"Did he bring you news from Aurelia?" Talia was at my side, eager as a puppy. "Are you going to run away with her?"

I slammed the top of the box shut, "No! No I'm not."

Talia took a startled step back.

Anger coiled in the pit of my stomach. I glared at her. "Don't you understand that this isn't a game Talia? It's my life. Women like us don't marry Duke's daughters. We just don't."

"I didn't..." she stumbled over her words as her small face crumbled.

Guilt caught my tongue and stopped the angry words I might have spoken next. I turned away from her, "I'm sorry Talia, I didn't mean to yell at you."

"It's all right," she said softly. "Your sad, you can yell if it makes you feel better" I felt her hand on my shoulder, hesitant and light.  

I felt a sob rise up in my throat and fought it down. I covered my sister's hand with my own, "I'll be alright Talia, I will. I'm just not right now."

"Can I help?"

I shook my head, "No, there is nothing that will help. I think I just need to be alone for a bit."

"I'll go feed the chickens then," she pulled away from me and slipped out into the yard.

I waited until she was gone to turn around. The floor was still strewn with tools. With a heavy heart I knelt to begin picking them up.


	8. Chapter 8

 

The day of the ball I was up on the barn when a cart came into the yard. I knew the cart, the grey horse, and the dark haired girl driving it, Katie the blacksmith's daughter. What I did not expect was her companion. I recognized Jenny's bright hair even before she turned her face up to see me. 

I scrambled down the ladder to meet her. Talia had already bolted from the house at the sound of hoofbeats and beat me to the cart by the time I reached the ground and was excitedly talking with Katie.

"Jenny's here to do the final fitting on your dress. But there's even more exciting news, Katie's going to propose to Farmer Browns second oldest son!" she crowed.

"Is she now?" I asked offering Jenny a hand down from the cart, which she took with a shy smile.

"Aye," laughed Katie with her usual good cheer from where she was still seated, "I've finally got leave from my father to pledge my inheritance as my dowry and go ask Sam's parents for his hand. I intend to wed him at the fall festival, if he says yes."

My stepmother limped slowly into the yard, "Have you girls both forgotten your manners. Why hasn't anyone invited her in for tea, instead of babbling like workmen on the side of a cart."

Katie shook her head, "I can't I've got a ways to ride and probably a few hours of haggling with Mrs. Brown ahead of me. I've had Sam's heart since midsummer and his father's consent since I shoed his draft horse for free this fall but his mother will be sore to lose a strong farm hand from the household."

"Have you brought her something to ease the loss?" asked my stepmother with a half smile. "She won't be eager to let go of a capable set of hands from a farm that size."

"As fine a set of kitchen knives as I have ever forged."

My stepmother grinned, "That will do it then, many a goodwife would gladly give you her son for your good steel work."

Katie nodded blushing, "And I made a cloak pin for Sam." She unfolded a smaller bag and showed me a small metal pendant, which was made of an intricate set of carefully wrought knots, more fitting of the work of a fine jewelry maker than a common blacksmith.

"It's beautiful," gasped Talia.

"I know he'll say yes. It's his parents I've got to convince, but I still won't believe it until I hear him say it."

"From what I hear he'd wed you even if you arrived empty handed with nothing but a linen shift to your name," I teased.

"Especially if you arrived in a shift," said my stepmother deadpan. Sometimes I forgot that she did have a sense of humor, I'd heard it so seldom.

Katie blushed, "Aye, I'd hope so. Anyway I must be off, Jenny I’ll be back for you before dark."

Once she was gone we all went into the kitchen where Lilia was sitting with a cup of tea. Jenny opened up my mother trunk to take out the dress. I took it and stepped into the pantry to slip it on while everyone waited. It finally fit perfectly. 

When I came out Jenny was holding the most beautiful pair of slippers I had ever seen, they may have begun as white but countless hours of very careful stitching had left them a delicate work of complex blue swirls. 

I was breathless when I took them from her and slipped them on my own feet. Talia gasped in awe. I got a nod from my stepmother and a smile from Lilia. When I looked at Jenny there something sweet and sad in her eyes, something I'd seen that spring morning when I rose and left her on the soft grass beside the stream.

"Here, look at yourself dear," said my stepmother. She picked up the hand mirror and passed it to Talia to hold up for me.

When I looked in the scratched mirror I didn't recognized the woman I saw. She was delicate and beautiful in a way I had never learned to be.  My dark hair tumbled over my pail bare shoulders. The silk flowed down my arms and small breasts, adding an elegant curve to my slender hips. The hem danced about my ankles. In the light of the fire the stitch work on the slippers shone like cut glass.

I looked like the kind of woman who went to balls, who danced on polished wooden floors beneath the golden light of wax candles and married duke's daughters. I was to wear it on the day I let go of Aurelia forever and married my childhood sweetheart instead. My heart broke in a thousand different ways. 

Lilia saved me from the tears that might have come.

"Jenny, I hate to ask this of you so close to the festival but would you be willing to help me adjust my wedding dress as well?  I'll understand if you're too busy with paid commissions but you did such a beautiful job on Ashley's dress."

Jenny offered her an easy smile, "Lilia we're about to be sisters. I'd be happy to. Bring me the dress now and let us see what it needs." 

"Oh thank you,"

And just like that I was no longer the center of attention and glad of it. I changed out of the dress and folded it back into the trunk. I sat on a kitchen chair and watched as Jenny darted around Lilia with a great deal of pins and then made careful alterations with a few stitches on the kitchen table. 

It struck me that she was very efficient when she wanted to be and in fact only needed about an hour to adjust Lilia's dress. Perhaps mine had taken three fittings because she wanted to see me more than anything else.

By the time she finished it was well into the late afternoon. My stepmother pushed away her tea cup, "Ashley, there seems no sense in making Jenny wait for Katie to come back, she might be very late. Why don't you take her home with our cart?"

I knew perfectly well that she was trying to give some time alone with Jenny and agreed. I wanted another chance to talk to her before the wedding. Jenny seemed to feel the same.

The moment we both rose my stepmother said, "You should go ahead and take your healers chest and trousseau box to Jenny's home now, then we won't have to worry about moving it on the festival day."

"I'll help," offered Jenny. My medical box and satchel proved easiest. The heavy trunk that held all the linens I owned in the world took us both. The big dye pot was a challenge but we managed. We left the loom, although I'd have to come back for it at some point. We put the dress and its trunk back into the cart as well, I'd be getting ready for the festival in town at Jenny's home, there was no way I was exposing the silk dress to road dust before the festival, especially since when I came for the wedding I'd be the one driving the cart.

It wasn't until I saw all of my worldly possessions in the back of the cart that I realized what I was doing, what my stepmother had just urged me to do. She wasn't giving me a chance to change my mind or run away, not that I would have. 

When everything was loaded I led the horse towards the gate. My stepmother watched us from the doorway of the kitchen. Just before we reached the gate she called out, "Ashley, if it's getting dark when you get to town you'd best not come back on the road. Stay with the Harpers."

I waved but didn't answer her as I climbed up into the driver's seat. "Will your mother mind?" I asked Jenny as I urged the horse onto the road.

She raised an eyebrow, "I should hope not, you’re about to become her daughter in law."

"Fair enough." Even in our town, some leeway was given to engaged couples, especially those soon to wed.

The wind picked up quickly, as the sun began to dip lower on the horizon. Jenny drew her cloak close around herself and moved closer. She was a familiar and reassuring presence at my side. I'd meant to use the time to talk but no words came and instead we rode in companionable silence.

I never expected the cloaked figured who suddenly stepped from the forest. One moment the road was open before us and the next Robin was blocking the way with a scrawny girl armed with a crossbow on her left and a brawny man with a sword to her right.

Jenny drew a knife from her belt as I slipped one from my boot.

Robin pushed back her green hood, showing her dark hair and scared face in the fading light of day. "Hello pretty girl, I've come to claim that favor you owe me."

Jenny's hand tightened on her blade, "She owes you nothing. Please, let us go in peace. We've nothing of value."

Robin raised an eyebrow, "Oh, she hasn't told you about me then?"

My finance's eyes widened and she turned her head sharply to me, whispering, "Is she...?"

"No!" I snapped.

Robin strode closer, easily laying a hand upon the horses halter, although he'd have bitten or shied away from any other stranger. She looked up at me. "Do you deny your sworn debt to me."

I almost did, but I was no fool, "I acknowledge that I swore you a favor in exchange for you guiding Jacques and me through your forest."

"Good, then come with me. I've heard your good with herbs and I've an injured man who will die without a healers care."

"Where?"

"The forest, where else?"

The last thing in the world I wanted was to follow a group of bandits into the forest at night. 

"Do you swear you will safely take me to this man and bring me back just the same to town this very night?"

"Yes, you've my word."

"And you'll let my finance go on her way safely?"

"I'm not leaving you," snapped Jenny.

"I've no time for this," snapped Robin, "my friend is bleeding to death to as we speak. Honor your debt and come along. Bring her if you must."

"I have to go," I told Jenny. "I gave this woman my word."

She looked at me through narrowed eyes and then slowly nodded, "If you gave your word then you must. All the same I go with you."

"Please, I won't put you in danger."

"And what makes you think you get to decide that for me." She rested a hand on the side of the cart and leapt down.

I slipped my healers satchel over my shoulder and followed her.

The bandit promised, "My man here will see to your horse and cart. We'll bring you back to it when we are done."

Jenny took my hand and we followed the bandit and the girl with the crossbow into the forest as the man with the sword led my horse and cart away.

...

It was a long walk in the darkness. Robin walked beside me as graceful in the dark as a cat, even as Jenny stumbled.

Robin leaned just close enough to whisper, "Fiancé huh?"

"Yes," I hissed back.

"Wasn't judging."

The wind whipped at us with each step and though I tried to remember the way, I was soon hopelessly turned around. Jenny's hand tightened around my own. I was glad to have her by my side, though I'd have rather known she was safely on her way to town.

Far up ahead I saw the light of a fire and heard the babel of raised voices. Robin made a few low whistles that were answered by the forest. When we came into the circle of light I was met by the raised faces of a small group men and women, half gathered around a man who lay on the ground covered in blankets and the rest around another who was bound hand and foot. 

As I watched one of them kicked the bound man hard and he groaned.

I hesitated to step into the circle of the fire.

"Never mind that," said Robin, "that's the stranger that attacked our friend.

I bit my tongue on what I would have said next. I was in no place to help the man, be he saint or murderer.

Robin directed us towards the bandit beneath the ragged blankets; "He was alive when I left. His wound was to his side, see what you can do for him little healer."

I knelt down beside the man.  There was a filthy haired girl sitting behind him so that he could rest his head in her lap. 

"Please, he's my brother. Help him," she begged.

Even in the firelight I could see that the man was barely old enough to be called so, only a thin scruff of a hair darkened his pale lip and chin. I laid my hand on his forehead and felt no heat of fever, though when I touched his wrist the beat of his heart was slow.

I pulled back the blankets and carefully tugged up his bloodied shirt. "I need someone to boil me water if you can," I said.

The wound was long and jagged and ugly. When I lowered my head to sniff there was no stink and no corruption. It was a stab wound as surely I had ever seen.

When water was brought I mixed in herbs and honey and carefully washed out the wound with Jenny's help. Then I set about the slow work of stitching the ragged skin.

A sudden scream of agony from across the fire turned my head. One of the older women was beside the man, twisting a blade within what was clearly a shoulder wound.

"Tell me who the hell you are with!"

"The Duchess!"

"What Duchess?"

"Duchess Melville." 

"Don't take me for a fool boy, even I know her lands are three days ride from here."

The man howled with pain as the woman dragged the dagger through his wound. I realized I was staring and looked back down at my stitch work.

"She's here! She's here for the ball."

"You aren’t no proper escort. All those fancy women who came to court the duke's whelp came with fine dressed guards. You’re just a peasant like us, rags and voice and all. Why would a fine duchess bring the likes of you and set you stalking through the forest?"

"I'm one of her soldiers!"

Robin moved closer, her face a dark shadow in the dim firelight, "And what would she be wanting with soldiers, when she's come only to win a well born bitch."

The man coughed blood, "She knows she won't get the duke's daughter, everyone knows the duke turned down her offer. So she's going to take her and all the duke's lands. She only ever wanted the girl so she’d have a legitimate claim on the territory when she invaded it.”

Robin knelt down next to him, "What on the night of the ball? You're making up stories lad. I wouldn't advise that not when I've handed over your treatment to Mary here and it's her son bleeding into the earth over there. Tell the truth or I'll let her take the knife to you again."

"I'm telling you the truth you fucking bitch!" He watched her with wide, frightened eyes, "The duchess has got men all through the woods. We're to attack and take the castle at the stroke of midnight, when all the guards are well and drunk. I was on my way when your man stopped me in the forest and demanded to know my business."

I had taken as long as I could with my stitches but I could not in good conscience leave an injured man uncovered any longer.  I bound the boy's wounds and wrapped the blankets back around him.

Jenny sat beside me her back as straight as a poker.  We locked eyes in the darkness. She'd heard the man as well as I had. I stood slowly.

"Robin, you gave your word you'd lead us back safely."

She turned back to us, as if she'd utterly forgotten we we're even there. "Aye, I did and I'll keep my word. One of my people will see you back to your cart."

"What about the castle?" blurted out Jenny. 

Robin shrugged, resting her hand on her sword hilt. "That is the business of nobles, not mine."

"But you live in these lands."

"Aye and if I go running to the castle the duke will hang me sooner than listen. Trust me lass, you'd best keep away from all of this and forget you heard anything. When nobles draw steel it is common folk who bleed."

"And the town?"

Robin frowned, "That could well burn. I saw enough of that during the Carters War."

"Then hurry up and guide me. We've got to warn them." Jenny grabbed my hand and started into the forest. 

Robin fell quickly in beside us, "Do you think they'll believe a story like this one lass?"

"I've never told a lie in my life, of course they will. Even if they don't, I've got to try. I've six little sisters and a sick mother in town, if nothing else I have to protect them."

"Then I'll get you there as fast as I can and may the gods go with you."

We hurried as quickly as we dared back through the forest. The cart was waiting for us, set in a little side path just off the main road the man with the crossbow beside it.

Jenny ran to the cart and scrambled up into the driver's seat, "Come on!"

"I can't, I have to go warn the castle."

"Forget them."

"I can't,  _ she's _ there."

"The one you love," she said softly.

"Yes. I have to warn her. I have too."

She leaned down and clasped my hand, "Then go. Take the gown and the shoes; with them you can look like a noble lady. It's the only way you'll get in."

"Go and may the gods be with you." 

"You too," she leaned down and pulled me into a quick kiss. It lacked the clumsiness of our first kiss, or the passion of those that had followed but it was perhaps the most honest one we had ever shared.

We broke apart and I she handed down the dress and the shoes from the trunk, wrapped in sackcloth. She whipped the horse and the cart started down the road.

Robin watched her go appreciatively, "That is one hell of a woman,"

I whirled around and found Robin still there.

"Yes she is," 

"You really going to give her up for a spoiled baby duchess?"

I started walking, "If it means Aurelia lives, then yes."

"I can show you a faster path to the castle through the forest."

"For a debt?"

"Three."

"Lead the way."

As we moved along an all but hidden goat path the moon rose to help lead our steps. Once along our way I thought I heard voices in the darkness and many shifting feet but she led me off the path into the underbrush and the sounds faded. We came at last to the very edge of the castle. I could see it brilliantly lit up from within by oil lamps. On such a night, lights were even lit upon the ramparts. The main gates were open and I could see a few late carriages arriving.

I slipped my clothes off in the darkness of the trees and tugged on my mother's silk dress and Jenny's embroidered shoes. I didn't give a damn what I looked like but I still combed out, re-braided, and twisted up my hair quickly so it’s tangles state would not give me away.

"I don't suppose you're actually a fairy are you?" I asked Robin, "what with you living in the forest and all?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Then you could magic me a carriage and some horses from a pumpkin and some mice to take me up to that gate, just like in a story."

"No, but I can see a servants entrance on the left side. Just slip in there and follow the voices into the ball. Anyone seeing you will just assume you got lost on your way to the privy."

"That will do well enough. I'll be off."

"Wait, I'll be claiming that first debt right now, and I'll take it as a kiss as good as the one you gave your fiancé."

"Right now?" I already had my skirts in my hand to cross the lawn.

"Why not? Now is probably my only chance. By tomorrow you'll be dead or happily in another woman's arms."

I had no time to argue. I grabbed the taller woman and yanked down her head down to kiss her. She was surprised for a moment and then more than adequate to the task. I felt my heart race and my blood warm. I caught her hands when they started to wander.

"Wish me luck."

"All that is mine to wish you. Go save your love." 

She slipped back into the shadows of the forest as if she'd never been there and I set off across the darkened lawn, dry grass beneath my feet.

 


	9. Chapter 9

The servant’s entrance was not far from the edge of the woods. There was a small yard, clearly meant for receiving kitchen deliveries. No one was there, save a young pair of servants necking against the wall. They didn't notice me.

I pushed open the door and stepped into a short hallway. I hurried down it, past a kitchen and then up a flight of steps. I could hear voices and noise not far away. Another turn almost sent me into a servant girl carrying a tray. She hurried past without offering directions.

One more set of steps; two more hallways and another door brought me to fine carpets and paintings on the walls. At last I pushed open another door and came into the heat and light of the great ballroom.

For a moment I was awestruck by the sheer amount of noise and color. I'd never seen so many finely dressed people dancing in all of my life. I looked about frantically for Aurelia, she was the only person there who knew me or might possibly believe my story.

There were just so many people. I saw the duke sitting in a fine chair by the wall. A young man who could have been Aurelia's twin danced past me with an eagerly chattering beautiful woman in his arms. Sitting off alone I noticed a plain-faced woman in fine clothes trying very hard to not cry to loudly into her handkerchief.

I caught sight of Aurelia at the center of the room, dancing with a tall grey haired woman with a patch over her left eye. She had to be Baroness Hawthorne, who I'd seen riding into town not so long ago. She moved efficiently, if not gracefully. Aurelia wasn't smiling, nor did she look unhappy, just resigned.

"You can't be here,"

I jumped and turned to see Robert at my side.

"I have to, please listen to me."

I must have spoke loud enough to be attracting attention because he quickly bowed and offered his hand, "Dance with me."

I accepted we moved into the pattern of turning bodies. The steps were not familiar but not complicated.

"Please, you've got to leave. Seeing you will only make this harder for her."

"No, you don't understand. I've got to warn her. Duchess Melville is going to attack and take the duke's lands tonight."

His eyes widened, "How do you know that?"

"It's a long story, but I know. I saw one of her soldiers being interrogated."

"Swear it is true."

"I swear."

"Then I'll go tell the guards."

The song ended and he bowed, "Find Aurelia, her father will sooner believe her than me."

The moment he was gone Aurelia was there, bowing deeply to me, "My lady, will you share this dance with me?"

Her face was a mix of awe, longing and grief. I took her hand and we danced as I had dreamed we would dance, but in what could only be the worse situation possibly imaginable. We passed Baroness Hawthorne dancing with a beautiful dark haired woman with a thin face and sharp eyes. She wore as fine a red silk gown as I had ever seen.

"You came,"

"Never mind that love, Baroness Hawthorne is going to have her men attack the castle tonight and capture you. You've got to get away."

"What?"

"Melville’s soldiers are about to attack. You have to believe me."

"I do, we have to warn my father."

She tried to pull away from me but I caught her arm and kept us turning, "Don't run over, we can dance that way."

We turned off the floor and then walked. The duke looked up from his mug at his daughter in vague amusement and then confusion when he saw me. He had the look of a man who had clearly seen me before but couldn't place me.

Aurelia knelt down beside him to speak to him rapidly.

As she spoke his eyes slowly widened. "This had better not be one of your games lass," he whispered.

"I swear it on my mother's grave."

That was the last proof the duke needed. He surged to his feet. "Guards bar the door and bring me Duchess Melville, hat traitors bitch, before she escapes. She's betrayed us all. She has troops in the woods."

There was a half beat of silence as everyone in the room stared at the duke. Across the room the dark haired woman in the red dress pushed away her dance partner and faced the duke. When one guard took a step towards her the sheer look of fury in her eyes held him at bay.

"Duke Bartholomew how dare you accuse me of treachery."

"I dare madame."

A slow smile spread across her red lips, "Then you are not quite the fool I took you for.  All the same, by dawn your lands and your daughter will be mine."

She gave a nod of her head and everything exploded into chaos. Across the room several men, who had been dressed simply like servants and at the edges of the room, drew hidden blades. At that some moment a far door burst open and well armed men rushed in.

The few castle guards in the room drew their own swords and rushed to block them. At my side Aurelia drew her own ornamental rapier.

"Stay at my back."

I reached for the dagger in the boots I wasn't wearing and cursed the dress and shoes that had gotten me into the palace but were so utterly useless now.

Behind us the duke had yanked his sword from his belt and charged past us before Aurelia could stop him.

"Fight me like the bitch you are Duchess Melville!" He bellowed.

"Papa wait!" cried Aurelia as her father ran headlong into the swarm of armed men surrounded Duchess Melville.

"To the duke!" yelled the dark haired nobleman, who I had seen earlier and looked so much like Aurelia and Rob, as he followed his father into the scrum.

Aurelia looked frantically between her brother and me.

"Go, I'll keep my head down," I told her.

"I..." Her face was utterly torn.

"Go protect you father!"

The moment she turned a pretty girl in a pink dress knocked me off my feet by backing up into me. She was clinging to the arm of Baroness Hawthorne who was engaged in frantic sword combat with one of the duchess's men.

I hit the ground and was nearly trample by the duchess's soldier. I yanked out my hairpin and jammed it hard into the space just above his boot. The man howled and before he could turn on me Baroness Hawthorne lunged forward and stabbed him. He crumbled with an ugly gurgle of blood.

I rolled out of the way and when I raised my head, Baroness Hawthorne had a hand out to help me up.

"On your feet my lady."

I was stunned but I managed to take her hand. She pulled me up with surprising strength.

She and the pretty girl were clearly making their way towards the wall. The whole room was an utter chaos of fleeing and trapped ball guests and fighting men and women. No one stopped us before we reached our goal beside a huge ornamental fireplace.

Across the room I could see the duke lashing about like a wild boar at the heart of everything, still too far from the duchess to harm her. Aurelia and her brother were two dark headed figured fighting back to back, trying to reach their father but still too far away. there was no sign yet of Rob and the guard he had promised to bring.

My foot hit something and when I looked down I saw that a poker for the fireplace had been knocked over and lay at my feet. I knelt quickly and lifted it. The weight of the metal felt good in my hands. I had no idea how to wield a sword but this I knew what to do with.

I saw the duchess  making her way across towards Aurelia, flanked by a ring of her soldiers. I would have never expected her to do her own dirty work but even as her guards attacked Aurelia's brother, forcing the two siblings apart, she moved swiftly grabbing my lover and pressing a dagger to her throat.

I didn't think, I just moved. No one noticed me.  No one stopped me. I was just a small woman in a silk gown.

The duchess's voice rang out, "Stop! Throw down your arms, Duke Bartholomew, or I slit your daughter's throat."

Aurelia struggled against her captor, but the duchess knew what she was doing. Aurelia's struggles only brought the blade to her throat, sending a trail of dark red blood dripping down onto her white shirt.

I didn't hesitate, didn't stop. I pushed past two startled armed men, shoving one hard to get him out of my way.  No one saw me raise the poker until it was too late. I brought it high behind the duchess's head and slammed it down.

There was an empty thunking sound and she crumpled. Aurelia scrambled away from her, clutching at her throat. I stepped over the duchess to get to her. I grabbed Aurelia, pulling us away from the duchess's men and back into the relative safety of the swirling crowd.

"Ash," she managed.

"Hush," I reached out and tore the clean linen at the hem of her shirt to quickly bind her throat. The wound wasn't deep, just bleeding a lot. All around us violence ebbed and flowed. Aurelia's brother had finally reached his father's side.

Together they forced the duchess 's disheartened men towards the hall, where I would later learn the duke's other forces, lead by Robert, were waiting to box them in. The air smelled like blood and fear but all I could think of was the woman beside me.

She was shaking, her breath ragged. I grabbed her shoulder and kept her from following her brother and father into the hall.

"No, your hurt."

Her body slumped from pain and exhaustion. She still had her hand pressed to the reddening cloth. I lent her my shoulder and helped support her.

She looked down and suddenly, inexplicably began to laugh. "You've lost your shoe."

It was not until then that I began to feel the cold of the floor beneath my right foot, "Yes I suppose I have."

Ridiculously I felt a sudden pang of guilt for all the time that Jenny had spent embroidering those slippers, and now I'd gone and lost one. I almost laughed myself then, there were cooling bodies on the floor and I was thinking of a shoe.

A cry of triumph rose from the hall and yard. It wasn't long before the duke and his son swept back into the hall with Robert at their heels.

Guards hurried past me to secure the duchess , who still lay on the floor. I had not bothered to check her state but the slow rise and fall of her chest told me she was still breathing. I did not know whether to be relieved that I was not a killer or disappointed that I had not done away with the woman who had conspired so much.

"Aurelia!" The duke rushed past me to embrace his daughter, yanking her out of my arms.

Distantly I heard the duke asking how Aurelia had known the duchess  would attack.

"Lady Ashley came to warn me."

Just as quickly the duke was in front of me, "My Lady how is it that you knew to warn us?"

"It is a long story, one I will tell you when men I might help are not bleeding to death on your floor, but to put things simply I owed a woods woman a favor and went to heal an injured friend of hers in the forest. It was then I heard her companions interrogate and get the truth from a soldier of the duchess who had hurt their man."

The duke nodded, "I'd like to hear that tale in full later.  For now I am deeply grateful for your aid tonight. I must know though, of whose family do you hail, I thought I knew all nobles in this land and those lying near but I do not know a Lady Ashley.

I looked up at the tall man with the bloody hands, "My name is Ashley Blackthorn, my mother was Lady Martha Walters. I have lived all my life in your lands on the simple farm my father James Blackthorn left me. I helped preserve the life of your man Robert but a fortnight ago."

His bushy eyebrow rose with recognition, "You're the healer girl from the farm. I did not know you were a lady."

I straightened my back. "In silk or sackcloth I am still my mother's daughter and have the right to her title."

He bowed to me, a duke bowed to me, "Your courage today brings honor to your family name, Lady Ashley. I am forever in your debt both for my own life and that of my daughters. Is there anything that I might do to reward you?"

I took a slow steadying breath and looked towards Aurelia. Her dark eyes were desperate and pleading, giving me the strength to dare what I might never have before.

"I ask that you give me your blessing to seek the hand of your only daughter in marriage."

"What?" His eyebrows shot up further.

Aurelia grabbed his arm, "I love her Papa, I love her."

He had a rather bewildered but also tired look to him as he look down at her. "You mean that truly little bird?"

"Yes, with all of my heart I love her."

He considered for a moment and then looked back and me, "I suppose I would not still have a daughter if it were not for you, so I can hardly refuse you my consent to seek her hand, especially if she would have you."

Aurelia gave a cry of joy and hugged him. She pulled back after a moment and a serious look came over her face. She knelt down in front of me. Her knee hit something and she lifted up my nearly crushed slipper. She stared at it for a moment, as if contemplating what it was, but didn't lose her stride.

"Lady Ashley, will you marry me. I'll give you your shoe back if you do."

"Yes, yes of course," I tilted her face up to kiss her.

When we pulled apart she smiled and offered me my shoe back. Laughing I held out my foot and she slipped the ruined thing back on. It fit of course. Had we been in a story there might have been cheers but as it was, nearly everyone else had business to attend to.

I spent the rest of that night with my hands stained with blood that I had not shed, helping the castle healer preserve as many lives as he could.

...

We wed at the fall festival. Aurelia insisted that we not delay for fear her father might rethink his blessing.

We married with all the other fall couples in the great festival field of the village commons. It was as grand an affair as the village had ever seen. The duke saw to it that the town had more than sufficient ale and food, he owed the village guard and townspeople a debt nearly beyond paying.

They had rallied at Jenny's warning and captured more than half the duchess 's forces in the forest and on the road before they could fall upon the castle. Had they not helped, the castle would have been taken, even after Robert raised the castle guard just in time to fight.

Many of the ball guests stayed for the wedding. Baroness Hawthorne was there with Lady Isabella on her arm. She gave Aurelia a fine set of daggers.

"I originally meant these as a courting gift but I think they will do just as well as a wedding gift. The ones you carry now are too ornamental and poorly balanced and you should not go around so badly equipped."

Aurelia thanked her and Baroness Hawthorne gave her a polite nod before adding, "I have not won your hand but I would like to keep you friendship. If you ever wish to improve your rather sorry swordsmanship you are always welcome to visit me in my lands."

If she minded losing her suit she made no sign of it, in fact from the way she look at Lady Isabella, she seemed to think she'd found a better match.

Lady Isabella who was as chatty as Aurelia had said but she also proved to be very sweet natured. She gave me a beautiful silver bracelet with songbird charms on it.

"It was for Aurelia," she said with a charming smile, "but I think it will suit you better."

Truth be told, nearly all the guests were still at the castle on the day of the wedding, though not all by choice. They had been required remain to give testimony to the king's inquisitor who arrived the afternoon after the attack. He had been sent to learn what had happened and take charge of the duchess  and her remaining men.

The duke had wanted to deal with her himself, which as far as I could tell meant hanging her from the stable yard lintel. The king's man refused to allow it though. Nobles were not allowed to execute each other and he wanted the duchess  to see the king's justice. From what I understood it was still likely she might be found guilty of making war during peace time (unsuccessful war, had she actually taken the duke's lands there might never have been an inquest) and executed by the crown. If it was the crown that hung her though, then her allies and relatives would have no grounds to seek vengeance against the duke and more importantly the crown could seize her lands.

I had little thought for that, not when I feared I might wake any moment and be told it was all a dream. It seemed that certainly someone would remember that I was the daughter of a runaway noble woman disowned by her family and a failed merchant and denounce me. No one did. I was called Lady Ashley and no one, even those who'd known me all my life, questioned my nobility.

I took Aurelia's hand at the setting of the sun just as the bonfire was lit on the night of the festival. Lilia was there wedding her baker's son and Katie with her farmer's son. Jenny was not present and I did not blame her.

The night before her sister Mary had come to my door with a package. The girl looked at me with a mix of awe and resentment.

"My sister sent me to bring you this. She said she thought your mother's dress must have been ruined with everything that happened and you'd need something befitting a lady to get married in."

I was speechless. My hands shook as I took the package from the girl.

"She didn't make it for you though," snapped Mary, her dark eyes dared me to reply. "She made it for Lady Greenwood over in Langley Park. We're going to be late with that order now. It's not as pretty as the first dress, the one you were supposed to wear to marry her."

There are few creatures quiet as cutting as an angry girl of fifteen years, especially one who feels you've wronged her sister.

"I..."

"I hope your happy," said the girl, "because she's heartbroken."

"I never meant to hurt her. You have to know that Mary."

She bit at her lip like she didn't want to say what she had to next, "Jenny doesn't think you did. She said to tell you that she understands and wants you to be happy. She said she'd be alright, that she's got six fine sisters and will make her own way."

"Tell her I thank her for the dress and wish her all the happiness in the world.

That got me a scowl, "I'll tell her."

After she departed I opened the package and took out a silk green dress and a set of plain white slippers.

I was wearing those as I stood in the dry grass beside the growing bonfire. The traveling priestess called all the families to come forward and offer up those who wished to be joined together before the gods. My stepmother led Lilia and me to the center of the gathered crowd, a daughter on each elbow. The duke, looking as at home at a festival as a ball, brought Aurelia by the arm.

She looked very grand in the fading light, her dark hair neatly braided. She was dressed nearly as simply as I'd ever seen her, a white linen shirt and a dark vest with oak leaves embroidered in the sleeves, linen trousers and fine boots. She wore a crown of fall leaves like any village girl, as did Lilia and me.

I felt that all was well in the world when we joined hands and listened to the marriage blessing, I'd heard it so many times before in my life, from the time I first stood beside my mother as a small child watching the bonfire. There were always weddings in the fall.

Aurelia’s eyes were gently and her smile honest. All of my fear, all of my uncertainty vanished as quickly as frost upon the dawn. I knew that I would pay every price I had to in order to remain by her side.

The years that followed were not easy. Anyone who believes that an impoverished noblewoman could marry a Duke's daughter and not pay a price for it is a fool, as big a fool as the people who say I used magic to turn rags into a gown, a pumpkin into a carriage and mice into footmen.

People will say what they will though and stories have a way of growing on their own. Some stories make me as common as church mouse, most make Aurelia and me strangers until the very night of the ball. I certainly cannot account for why so many versions have me running away or give such significance to a lost shoe.

I could tell you the story of how hard I had to fight for the respect of the duke's household, how I was as often as not was shunned by the world of nobles. I could tell you other stories too of a far more exciting sort about what happened with Duchess Melville, for that matter was certainly not finished.

I think though that this tale is done. A story ought never go on to long and many of the best end where they have begun. I will finish this one with Aurelia and me, our eyes locked beside a fire, this time a kindling flame instead of ashes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there, thank you for sticking with this story for eighty five pages. I'm honestly trying to decide what to do with it now. It's too short for a novel, although not a novella. I honestly don't know if I should just leave it here and move on to other works, try to make it longer and publish it as a romance novel, or if I should self publish it on Amazon as a novella. I've also thought about working it into a series of three novellas. 
> 
> Anyway, thank you again to everyone who has reviewed, you have all been very kind and I appreciate your insight. Also thank you to everyone who's just read the story. I've loved sharing it with you.


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